Save PHP variables to a text file

Question

I was wondering how to save PHP variables to a txt file and then retrieve them again.

Example:

There is an input box, after submitted the stuff that was written in the input box will be saved to a text file. Later on the results need to be brought back as a variable. So lets say the variable is $text I need that to be saved to a text file and be able to retrieve it back again.

Hope it makes sense,

Thanks in advance!!!

Answer 1

Use a combination of of fopen, fwrite and fread. PHP.net has excellent documentation and examples of each of them.

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fwrite.php
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fread.php

Answer 2

Personally, I'd use file_put_contents and file_get_contents (these are wrappers for fopen, fputs, etc).

Also, if you are going to write any structured data, such as arrays, I suggest you serialize and unserialize the files contents.

$file = '/tmp/file';
$content = serialize($my_variable);
file_put_contents($file, $content);
$content = unserialize(file_get_contents($file));

Answer 3

This should do what you want, but without more context I can't tell for sure.

Writing $text to a file:

$var_str = var_export($text, true);
$var = "<?php\n\n\$$text = $var_str;\n\n?>";
file_put_contents('filename.php', $var);

Retrieving it again:

include 'filename.php';
echo $text;