PHP Tutorial Tutorials - PHP File Read

PHP provides various functions to read data from file:

• fread()
• file_get_contents()
• file()
• fgets()
• fgetc()

Reading from Files with PHP fread() Function

The fread function is the staple for getting data out of a file.
The function requires a file handle(return by fopen() function), and an integer represents length of byte to be read..
Syntax

string fread (resource $handle , int $length )

Example
data.txt

line 1
line 2
line 3

test.php

<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "D:\\data.txt";
$handle = fopen($filename, "r"); //open file in read mode
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename)); // read the whole file content
echo "<pre>$contents</pre>";//printing contents of the file
fclose($handle); // close file
?> 

Outputs:

line 1
line 2
line 3

Reading the entire contents of a file with PHP file_get_contents() Function

Syntax

string file_get_contents ( string $filename) : 

Example

<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "D:\\data.txt";
$contents = file_get_contents($filename);
echo "<pre>$contents</pre>";//printing contents of the file
?>

Reading the entire contents of a file with PHP file() Function

Another method of reading the whole contents from a file is file() function.
it reads the entire file contents into an array of lines.

<?php
$filename = "D:\\data.txt";
// Get a file into an array.  
$lines = file($filename);
// Loop through our array using a foreach loop. 
foreach ($lines as $line_num => $line) {
    echo "Line {$line_num} : " . htmlspecialchars($line) . "<br>";
}
?>

Output:

Line 0 : line 1 
Line 1 : line 2 
Line 2 : line 3 
Line 3 : line 4

Reading from Files with PHP fgets() Function

The PHP fgets() function is used to read single line from the file pointer.

Syntax

string fgets ( resource $handle [, int $length ] )

Example

<?php
// Reading a file line by line
$filename = "data.txt";

$handle = @fopen($filename, "r");
if ($handle) {
    while (($buffer = fgets($handle, 4096)) !== false) {
        echo $buffer;
    }
    if (!feof($handle)) {
        echo "Error: unexpected fgets() fail\n";
    }
    fclose($handle);
}
?> 

Reading from Files with PHP fgetc() Function

The PHP fgetc() function is used to read single character from the file.
This function is binary-safe.
Syntax

string fgetc ( resource $handle )

Example

<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "data.txt";

$fp = fopen($filename, 'r');
if (!$fp) {
    echo 'Could not open file '.$filename;
}
while (false !== ($char = fgetc($fp))) {
    echo "$char";
}
?>