How to read and write to an ini file with PHP

Question

I've been looking around the official php documentation but I'm unable to find what I'm looking for.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php

I just want a function to edit and read the value from the php ini file, for instance,

[default_colors]
sitebg = #F8F8F8
footerbg = #F8F8F8
link = #F8F8F8
url = #F8F8F8
bg = #F8F8F8
text = #F8F8F8
border = #F8F8F8

lu_link = #F8F8F8
lu_url = #F8F8F8
lu_bg = #F8F8F8
lu_text = #f505f5
lu_border = #F8F8F8

1. How do I read the value belonging to "lu_link" or "footerbg"?
2. How to I write a new value for these places?

Answer 1

You can simply use parse_ini_file with PHP4/5.

$ini_array = parse_ini_file("sample.ini");
print_r($ini_array);

Here is the doc: http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php

To write back an array of objects back to the ini file, use below as a very fast & easy solution:

function write_php_ini($array, $file)
{
    $res = array();
    foreach($array as $key => $val)
    {
        if(is_array($val))
        {
            $res[] = "[$key]";
            foreach($val as $skey => $sval) $res[] = "$skey = ".(is_numeric($sval) ? $sval : '"'.$sval.'"');
        }
        else $res[] = "$key = ".(is_numeric($val) ? $val : '"'.$val.'"');
    }
    safefilerewrite($file, implode("\r\n", $res));
}

function safefilerewrite($fileName, $dataToSave)
{    if ($fp = fopen($fileName, 'w'))
    {
        $startTime = microtime(TRUE);
        do
        {            $canWrite = flock($fp, LOCK_EX);
           // If lock not obtained sleep for 0 - 100 milliseconds, to avoid collision and CPU load
           if(!$canWrite) usleep(round(rand(0, 100)*1000));
        } while ((!$canWrite)and((microtime(TRUE)-$startTime) < 5));

        //file was locked so now we can store information
        if ($canWrite)
        {            fwrite($fp, $dataToSave);
            flock($fp, LOCK_UN);
        }
        fclose($fp);
    }

}

Answer 2

The PEAR Config_Lite package can do almost all the work (both reading and writing) for you super-easily. Check it out here: http://pear.php.net/package/Config_Lite

Answer 3

How about this:

 $key='option';
 $val='1.2.3.4.5';
 system("sed  -ie  's/\({$key}=\)\(.*\)/\1{$val}/' file.in");

Answer 4

Below is an implementation of write_ini_file() which PHP is currently lacking, it will create an almost identical (except comments) of the input:

• Supports cross platform (PHP_EOL) new lines added between sections.
• Handles both index and key value arrays.
• Handles CONSTANT style values.
• And file locking to stay consistent.

Source

<?php
if (!function_exists('write_ini_file')) {
    /**
     * Write an ini configuration file
     * 
     * @param string $file
     * @param array  $array
     * @return bool
     */
    function write_ini_file($file, $array = []) {
        // check first argument is string
        if (!is_string($file)) {
            throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Function argument 1 must be a string.');
        }

        // check second argument is array
        if (!is_array($array)) {
            throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Function argument 2 must be an array.');
        }

        // process array
        $data = array();
        foreach ($array as $key => $val) {
            if (is_array($val)) {
                $data[] = "[$key]";
                foreach ($val as $skey => $sval) {
                    if (is_array($sval)) {
                        foreach ($sval as $_skey => $_sval) {
                            if (is_numeric($_skey)) {
                                $data[] = $skey.'[] = '.(is_numeric($_sval) ? $_sval : (ctype_upper($_sval) ? $_sval : '"'.$_sval.'"'));
                            } else {
                                $data[] = $skey.'['.$_skey.'] = '.(is_numeric($_sval) ? $_sval : (ctype_upper($_sval) ? $_sval : '"'.$_sval.'"'));
                            }
                        }
                    } else {
                        $data[] = $skey.' = '.(is_numeric($sval) ? $sval : (ctype_upper($sval) ? $sval : '"'.$sval.'"'));
                    }
                }
            } else {
                $data[] = $key.' = '.(is_numeric($val) ? $val : (ctype_upper($val) ? $val : '"'.$val.'"'));
            }
            // empty line
            $data[] = null;
        }

        // open file pointer, init flock options
        $fp = fopen($file, 'w');
        $retries = 0;
        $max_retries = 100;

        if (!$fp) {
            return false;
        }

        // loop until get lock, or reach max retries
        do {
            if ($retries > 0) {
                usleep(rand(1, 5000));
            }
            $retries += 1;
        } while (!flock($fp, LOCK_EX) && $retries <= $max_retries);

        // couldn't get the lock
        if ($retries == $max_retries) {
            return false;
        }

        // got lock, write data
        fwrite($fp, implode(PHP_EOL, $data).PHP_EOL);

        // release lock
        flock($fp, LOCK_UN);
        fclose($fp);

        return true;
    }
}

Example input .ini file (taken from http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php)

; This is a sample configuration file
; Comments start with ';', as in php.ini

[first_section]
one = 1
five = 5
animal = BIRD

[second_section]
path = "/usr/local/bin"
URL = "http://www.example.com/~username"

[third_section]
phpversion[] = "5.0"
phpversion[] = "5.1"
phpversion[] = "5.2"
phpversion[] = "5.3"

urls[svn] = "http://svn.php.net"
urls[git] = "http://git.php.net"

Example usage:

// load ini file values into array
$config = parse_ini_file('config.ini', true);

// add some additional values
$config['main']['foobar'] = 'baz';
$config['main']['const']['a'] = 'UPPERCASE';
$config['main']['const']['b'] = 'UPPER_CASE WITH SPACE';
$config['main']['array'][] = 'Some Value';
$config['main']['array'][] = 'ADD';
$config['third_section']['urls']['docs'] = 'http://php.net';

// write ini file
write_ini_file('config.ini', $config);

Resulting .ini file:

[first_section]
one = 1
five = 5
animal = BIRD

[second_section]
path = "/usr/local/bin"
URL = "http://www.example.com/~username"

[third_section]
phpversion[] = 5.0
phpversion[] = 5.1
phpversion[] = 5.2
phpversion[] = 5.3
urls[svn] = "http://svn.php.net"
urls[git] = "http://git.php.net"
urls[docs] = "http://php.net"

[main]
foobar = "baz"
const[a] = UPPERCASE
const[b] = "UPPER_CASE WITH SPACE"
array[] = "Some Value"
array[] = ADD

Answer 5

Here's a functional version that creates a string that can be written to a file.

function IniAsStr(array $a) : string
{
    return array_reduce(array_keys($a), function($str, $sectionName) use ($a) {
        $sub = $a[$sectionName];
        return $str . "[$sectionName]" . PHP_EOL .
            array_reduce(array_keys($sub), function($str, $key) use($sub) {
                return $str . $key . '=' . $sub[$key] . PHP_EOL;
            }) . PHP_EOL;
      });
}

Answer 6

Here is your function to read and write INI files with a category option!

If you provide multi dimensional array, you will have category in your INI file. Or basic array will allow you to read and write data fast.

See the comments and example below for details:

### PHP write_ini_file function to use with parse_ini_file: (choose one of the two example arrays below...)
$array = array('category' => array('color' => 'blue', 'size' => 'large'));
// $array = array('color' => 'red', 'size' => 'small');
function write_ini_file($array, $path) {
    unset($content, $arrayMulti);

    # See if the array input is multidimensional.
    foreach($array AS $arrayTest){
        if(is_array($arrayTest)) {
          $arrayMulti = true;
        }
    }

    # Use categories in the INI file for multidimensional array OR use basic INI file:
    if ($arrayMulti) {
        foreach ($array AS $key => $elem) {
            $content .= "[" . $key . "]\n";
            foreach ($elem AS $key2 => $elem2) {
                if (is_array($elem2)) {
                    for ($i = 0; $i < count($elem2); $i++) {
                        $content .= $key2 . "[] = \"" . $elem2[$i] . "\"\n";
                    }
                } else if ($elem2 == "") {
                    $content .= $key2 . " = \n";
                } else {
                    $content .= $key2 . " = \"" . $elem2 . "\"\n";
                }
            }
        }
    } else {
        foreach ($array AS $key2 => $elem2) {
            if (is_array($elem2)) {
                for ($i = 0; $i < count($elem2); $i++) {
                    $content .= $key2 . "[] = \"" . $elem2[$i] . "\"\n";
                }
            } else if ($elem2 == "") {
                $content .= $key2 . " = \n";
            } else {
                $content .= $key2 . " = \"" . $elem2 . "\"\n";
            }
        }
    }

    if (!$handle = fopen($path, 'w')) {
        return false;
    }
    if (!fwrite($handle, $content)) {
        return false;
    }
    fclose($handle);
    return true;
}

write_ini_file($array,'./data.ini');
$readData = parse_ini_file('./data.ini',true);
print_r($readData);