I just want to quickly store an array which I get from a remote API, so that i can mess around with it on a local host.
So:
There are no needs for efficiency etc here, this isnt for an actual site just for getting some sanitizing/formatting methods made etc
Is there a function like store_array() or restore_arrray() ?!
The best way to do this is JSON serializing. It is human readable and you'll get better performance (file is smaller and faster to load/save). The code is very easy. Just two functions
Example code:
$arr1 = array ('a'=>1,'b'=>2,'c'=>3,'d'=>4,'e'=>5);
file_put_contents("array.json",json_encode($arr1));
# array.json => {"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}
$arr2 = json_decode(file_get_contents('array.json'), true);
$arr1 === $arr2 # => true
You can write your own store_array and restore_array functions easily with this example.
For speed comparison see benchmark originally from Preferred method to store PHP arrays (json_encode vs serialize).
If you don't need the dump file to be human-readable, you can just serialize() the array.
storing:
file_put_contents('yourfile.bin', serialize($array));
retrieving:
$array = unserialize(file_get_contents('yourfile.bin'));
Use serialize and unserialize
// storing
$file = '/tmp/out.data';
file_put_contents($file, serialize($mydata)); // $mydata is the response from your remote API
// retreiving
$var = unserialize(file_get_contents($file));
Or another, hacky way:
var_export() does exactly what you want, it will take any kind of variable, and store it in a representation that the PHP parser can read back. You can combine it with file_put_contents to store it on disk, and use file_get_contents and eval to read it back.
// storing
$file = '/tmp/out.php';
file_put_contents($file, var_export($var, true));
// retrieving
eval('$myvar = ' . file_get_contents($file) . ';');
Another fast way not mentioned here:
That way add header with <?php start tag, name of variable \$my_array = with escaped \$ and footer ?> end tag.
Now can use include() like any other valid php script.
<?php
// storing
$file = '/tmp/out.php';
$var = ['a'=>1,'b'=>2,'c'=>3,'d'=>4,'e'=>5];
file_put_contents($file,
"<?php\n\$my_array = "
.var_export($var, true)
.";\n?>"
);
// retrieving as included script
include($file);
//testing
print_r($my_array);
?>
out.php will look like this
<?php
$my_array = array (
'a'=>1,
'b'=>2,
'c'=>3,
'd'=>4,
'e'=>5
);
?>
You can use serialize to make it into a string to write to file, and the accompanying unserialize to return it to an array structure.
I'd suggest using a language independent structure though, such as JSON. This will allow you to load the files using different languages than PHP, in case there's a chance of that later. json_encode to store it and json_decode($str, true) to return it.
Talking about php use, for performance sake, avoid encoding and decoding everything, just save array with:
file_put_contents('dic.php', "<?php return " . var_export($dic, true) . ";\n");
and call normally with
$dic = include "dic.php";
Reference: https://php.net/include
Use php's serialze:
file_put_contents("myFile",serialize($myArray));
I made a tiny library (~2 KB; <100 lines) that allows you to do just this: varDx
It has functions to write, read, modify, check and delete data. It implements serialization, and therefore supports all data types.
Here's how you can use it:
<?php
require 'varDx.php';
$dx = new \varDx\cDX; //create an object
$dx->def('file.dat'); //define data file
$val1 = "this is a string";
$dx->write('data1', $val1); //writes key to file
echo $dx->read('data1'); //returns key value from file
In your specific case:
$array1 = array(
"foo" => "bar",
"bar" => "foo",
);
//writing the array to file
$dx->write('myarray', $array1);
//reading array from file
$array2 = $dx->read('myarray')
//modifying array in file after making changes
$dx->write('myarray', $array2);
