Beginner PHP Tutorial - 77 - File Handling: Writing to a File Video Lecture | PHP for Absolute Beginners: From Novice to PHP Master - Web Development

hello i'm alex from PHP academy' org and
this is a video for the new boston in
the video we're going to be talking
about PHP file handling now you can see
at the moment I've created a single PHP
file file dot PHP I haven't named it
index dot PHP for the purpose of this
tutorial so we can keep a track of
inside this directory now let's open up
our text editor and we can start writing
out in this file now PHP file handling
is on the basis or first of all opening
the file then what we do is we want to
either I mean in this in this example
I'm going to be writing data to a file
but you may want to read data in so
there are different attributes if you
like you can give when you open the file
the first one is W and this is for
writing so obvious it stands for writing
the second one is R which is for reading
so reading and the third one is a which
means append so or appending depending
on what you want however you want to say
so obviously the first one we're going
to use two the first one which is W
we're going to use to be writing to a
file R we're going to be reading from a
file and a we're going to be appending
to a far so basically adding to a file
so let's get rid of this ok so how do we
start up the first thing we need to do
is create a handle which will open the
file now even if the file doesn't exist
you can see at the moment inside here no
other files except file dot PHP exists
we create something called a handle
which uses the F open function to create
the file even if it doesn't exist so the
first argument we give it is the file
name itself then we use a comma and the
second argument we give is whether we
want to either
write to the file read from the file or
append to the file so in this instance I
want to write to the file so I'm going
to use R I'm sorry I'm going to use W I
want to write to the file and the file
I'm going to be the file I'm going to
call
is going to be called names dot txt so
it's a text file so we can open it up
and we can view it as a txt okay so now
if we execute this PHP script if we run
this PHP script rather let's just
refresh here and click on fired up here
screen nothing has happened as per yet
if we visit go back and refresh you can
see that a file has been created called
names txt so we can click on it there's
nothing in it at the moment so the next
stage is to come down and what we need
to do is to write some data to the file
so we don't need to use a variable for
this we've already created our hand or
when a variable up here and it's really
important to create this as a variable
because when we want to write to the
file we need to address the handle so
I'm just going to type F right and use
this function and in the brackets I want
to write first of all the handle so I
want to specify where I'm writing to so
I want to write to names.txt
and then I want to specify the data that
I'm writing so I'm just going to type in
Alex now what this is going to do is
we're going to obviously reiterate the
code this is going to run as well it
won't duplicate obviously the file it
will just create the same file and it
will come and it will write Alex to it
now if we come in and refresh and click
on file now we go back and we click on
names you can see that alex has been
written now you may think oh now what we
can do now is and even if we change this
we want to say right Billy because we've
still got this right and here all it's
going to do is it's going to reopen the
file and it's going to write again so
unless we do something like the
following
bili like that every time we're going to
be opening the file so now if we come
back and click on file dot PHP and we go
back again to names you can see that
it's written two names now now say I
want this on a line by line basis how do
I go about this now you need to append
on in it has to be it absolutely has to
be double quotation marks and you do a
backslash and an N and this creates a
new line so now let's go back click on
file up here again click on names and
you can see that a new line exists
between the end of this and the start of
that so it's written to a new line so we
can write as many names down this list
as we want so these are the basics of
writing to a file with PHP in some of
the other lessons we're going to learn
how to read data from a file and we can
also mess around with showing it as a
ray element so for example Alex would be
an element in an array and Billy would
be an element an array now one fun note
just to just before we end the tutorial
is the importance of the F close
function and you need to specify in here
the file you've already opened so we've
opened handle here and closing the file
just closes this connection with the
file so it doesn't remain open so this
just closed the file we can echo after
here say written and let's go back click
on file written we can go to names dot
txt we can say these two names have
already been written so in the next part
of the that file the handling tutorials
we're going to learn how to read from a
file
in fact we could probably learn I mean
beforehand you might need to think about
how you want to append to a file this is
always going to open it and write the
content here that you know it's going to
sort of create a new file so even if
names do exist within this if I was to
under here open the file again and
rewrite some names it would just erase
everything so I think in the next
tutorial we can look at appending data
to a file