PHP - File Read

My apologies for taking so long to actually get to the point where you get information from files. In this
lesson we will teach you how to read data from a file using various PHP functions.

PHP - File Open: Read

Before we can read information from a file we have to use the function fopen to open the file for reading.
Here's the code to read-open the file we created in the PHP File Write lessons.

PHP Code:
$myFile = "testFile.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');

The file we created in the last lesson was named "testFile.txt". Your PHP script that you are writing should
reside in the same directory as "text.txt". Here are the contents of our file from File Write.

testFile.txt Contents:
Floppy Jalopy
Pointy Pinto

Now that the file is open, with read permissions enabled, we can get started!

PHP - File Read: fread Function

The fread function is the staple for getting data out of a file. The function requires a file handle, which we
have, and an integer to tell the function how much data, in bytes, it is supposed to read.
One character is equal to one byte. If you wanted to read the first five characters then you would use five
as the integer.

PHP Code:
$myFile = "testFile.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
$theData = fread($fh, 5);
fclose($fh);
echo $theData;

Display:
Flopp

The first five characters from the testFile.txt file are now stored inside $theData. You could echo this
string, $theData, or write it to another file.
If you wanted to read all the data from the file, then you need to get the size of the file. The filesize
function returns the length of a file, in bytes, which is just what we need! The filesize function requires the name
of the file that is to be sized up.