How to create and write a file in a specific directory in PHP?

Question

I want to create a file failure-log.log in a specific directory and write to it. Already got the directory path from database. The path is like this:

D:/folder-one/folder-two/

And my PHP code is executing in another directory like this:

C:/apache24/crawler/admin/startService.php

How can I create the file and write to it?

I notice that you want to write a file outside web root, which is *not* suggested due to security concern. If you insist, you must turn off [safe_mode](http://nl2.php.net/manual/en/ini.sect.safe-mode.php#ini.safe-mode) or leave [doc_root](http://nl2.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.doc-root) to be empty in php.ini. Even you performed the above, you still need to give proper permission. — Raptor, Aug 09 '18 at 07:11

MorganFreeFarm · Answer 1 · 2018-08-09T07:14:18.577

1

Use file_put_contents method, like this:

$file ="D:/folder-one/folder-two/";
$current = file_get_contents($file); 
$current .= 'yourcontenthere';
file_put_contents($file, $current);

U can send flags to file_put_contents, like FILE_APPEND :

$file ="D:/folder-one/folder-two/"; 
$text = 'yourcontenthere';
file_put_contents($file, $text, FILE_APPEND);

In that case u will not have to retrieve the old content, u can check and other flags in link above.

Also is good idea to check if file exists before that.

edited Aug 09 '18 at 07:14

answered Aug 09 '18 at 07:03

MorganFreeFarm

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Have a look at `FILE_APPEND` in `file_put_contents()` – Nigel Ren Aug 09 '18 at 07:10
@NigelRen edited :) thank u! – MorganFreeFarm Aug 09 '18 at 07:14
Not recommended with large file. The function will copy the file into memory in order to copy the file to new location, which might hit PHP's max memory limit. – Raptor Aug 09 '18 at 10:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 09 '18 at 07:11

Make sure you use absolute path(you can use realpath() on relative path as well to be sure about the path) and directory is writable

then

$dir = 'your/path';

file_put_contents($dir ."/failure-log.log", $contentOfFile);

if you want the content of file not to be removed everytime then I suggest using FILE_APPEND

file_put_contents($dir ."/failure-log.log", $contentOfFile, FILE_APPEND);

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '18 at 07:05

Make that folder location writable for web server first. Then use below code to create file in that location.

$myfile = fopen("D:/folder-one/folder-two/file.log", "a") or die("Unable to open location for log file !");
$txt = "Log details goes here ...";
fwrite($myfile, $txt);
fclose($myfile);

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 09 '18 at 07:23

-1

Write to files

$writeFile = @fopen('/path/to/save/file', 'w+'); @fwrite($writeFile, $content); @fclose($writeFile);

With:

w+: will create a new file if it does not exist and overwrite if it exists
a: append to file already exist
a+: append to file already exist and create a new file if it does not exist

If you load path directory from the database, you maybe need to create multi-directory

if( !is_dir($path) ) { mkdir($path, 0777, true); }

With:

$path: path you were loaded from db

answered Aug 09 '18 at 07:23

ThangLe

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Never assign 777 permission to any folder or file; it is a common mistake, which will lead to security issues. If you want to create a folder with write permission for scripts, you use should 775 instead. – Raptor Aug 09 '18 at 08:19
Why do you downvote me? @Raptor – ThangLe Aug 09 '18 at 15:18
Mentioned in the previous comment. – Raptor Aug 10 '18 at 02:26
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@Raptor I'm using the window OS, actually, I don't care your "lead to security issues" because mode permission doesn't works on Window. Additional, mode permission of mkdir default is 0777. You can check here http://php.net/manual/en/function.mkdir.php. – ThangLe Aug 22 '18 at 09:58

How to create and write a file in a specific directory in PHP?

4 Answers4