how do i use php to read an external file and put insides into variables?

Question

I had no idea to correctly form the title of this question, because I don't even know if what I'm trying to do has a name.

Let's say I've got an external file (called, for instance, settings.txt) with the following in it:

template:'xaddict';
editor:'true';
wysiwyg:'false';

These are simple name:value pairs. I would like to have php take care of this file in such a way that I end up with php variables with the following values:

$template = 'xaddict';
$editor = 'true';
$wysiwyg = 'false';

I don't know how many of these variables I'll have.

How should i go and do this?

The data inside the file is in simple name:value pairs. No nesting, no complex data. All the names need to be converted to $name and all the values need to be converted to 'value', disregarding whether it is truly a string or not.

Answer 1

$settings = json_decode(file_get_contents($filename));

assuming your file is in valid JSON format. If not, you can either massage it so it is or you'll have to use a different approach.

Answer 2

If you use JSON, you can use something like:

extract(json_decode(file_get_contents('settings.json')));

Using extract may be dangerous, so I suggest to store these settings in an array:

$settings = json_decode(file_get_contents('settings.json'));

Answer 3

You should read your file to an array, with the file() function, then you should cycle on it: for each line (the file() function will return an array, one line per item), check if the line is not blank, then explode() on the ":" character, trim the pieces, and put them into an array. You will end up win an array like this:

[template] = xaddict
[editor] = true

then you can use this information.

Do not automatically convert this into local variables: it's a great way to introduce security risks, and potentially very obscure bugs (local variables obscured by those introduced by this parsing).

Answer 4

Do you want 'true' in "editor:'true'" to be interpreted as a string or as a boolean? If sometimes string, sometimes boolean, how do you know which?

If you have "number='9'" do you want '9' interpreted as a string or an as an integer? Would '09' be a decimal number or octal? How about "number='3.14'": string or float? If sometimes one, sometimes the other, how do you know which?

If you have "'" (single quote) inside a value is it escaped? If so, how?

Is there any expectation of array data?

Etc.

Edit: This would be the simplest way, imo, to use your example input to retrieve your example data:

$file = 'test.csv';
$fp = fopen($file, 'r');
while ($line = fgetcsv($fp, 1024, ':')) {
    $$line[0] = $line[1];
}