PHP extract data from text file and write to another file

Question

This is my first post on the internet for some assistance with coding so please bear with me! I have been finding open code on the internet for a few years and modding it to do what I want but I seem to have come up against a wall with this one that I am sure is very simple. If you would please be able to help me it would be very much appreciated.

I have the following page:

    <?php 
    $text = $_REQUEST['message'];
    $f = file_get_contents("all.txt"); 
    $f = explode(", ", $f); 

    function modFile($pos, $tothis, $inthis)
    { 
        foreach($inthis as $pos => $a){ 
        } 
        $newarr = implode("\r\n", $inthis); 
        $fh = fopen("example.txt", "w"); 
        fwrite($fh, $newarr); 
        fclose($fh); 
    } 

    modFile(4, '', $f); 

I have a file (all.txt) with the following:

    11111111111, 22222222222, 33333333333, 44444444444

That I wish to display like this:

    11111111111 
    22222222222
    33333333333
    44444444444

and to add a space then some text after each number where the text is the same on each line:

    11111111111 text here
    22222222222 text here
    33333333333 text here
    44444444444 text here

I have an html form that passes the custom text to be appended to each line. I need to keep the file all.txt intact then save the newly formatted file with a different name.

I have tried putting variables into the implode where I currently have the "\r\n" but this does not work.

Any help very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

A few notes about your code: You are passing $pos to the function but it will get overwritten in the foreach. Also the foreach is empty, so what's it good for? And I don't see you use $text anywhere either.

To achieve your desired output, try this instead:

file_put_contents(
    '/path/to/new.txt',
    preg_replace(
        '/[^\d+]+/',
        ' some text' . PHP_EOL,
        file_get_contents('all.txt')
    )    
);

The pattern [^\d+]+ will match any string that is not a consecutive number and replace it with "some text " and a new line.

A somewhat more complicated version achieving the same would be:

file_put_contents(
    '/path/to/new.txt', 
    implode(PHP_EOL, array_map(
        function ($number) {
            $message = filter_var(
                $_POST['message'], FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS
            );
            return sprintf('%s %s', trim($number), $message);
        },
        array_filter(str_getcsv(file_get_contents('/path/to/all.txt')))
    )
));

This will (from the inside out):

• Load the content of all.txt and parse it as CSV string into an array. Each array element corresponds to a number.
• Each of these numbers is appended with the message content from the POST superglobal (you dont want to use REQUEST).
• The resulting array is then concatenated back into a single string where the concatenating character is a newline.
• The resulting string is written to the new file.

In case the above is too hard to follow, here is a version using temp vars and no lambda:

$allTxtContent = file_get_contents('/path/to/all.txt');
$numbers = array_filter(str_getcsv($allTxtContent));
$message = filter_var($_POST['message'], FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS);
$numbersWithMessage = array();
foreach ($numbers as $number) {
    $numbersWithMessage[] = sprintf('%s %s', trim($number), $message);
};
$newString = implode(PHP_EOL, $numbersWithMessage);
file_put_contents('/path/to/new.txt', $newString);

It does the same thing.

Answer 2

Your foreach() closing brace is on the wrong place. You've missed the exact part of running the execution of the new file creation. Here:

$text = $_REQUEST['message'];
$f = file_get_contents("all.txt"); 
$f = explode(", ", $f);
function modFile($pos, $tothis, $inthis, $text){ 
    $fh = fopen("example.txt", "w");
    foreach($inthis as $pos => $a){ 
        $newarr = $a." ".$text."\r\n";
        fwrite($fh, $newarr);
    }
    fclose($fh);
} 
modFile(4, "", $f, $text);

This is for formatting your new file as you desire, however, you're not passing the new $text['message'] you want to append to your new file. You could either modify your mod_file() method or pass it within the foreach() loop while it runs.

EDIT* Just updated the whole code, should be now what you aimed for. If it does, please mark the answer as accepted.