Question

I have a PHP script that reads the contents of a file and stores it into a variable. I want to split the text stored by the new line entries and then search the array[0] value for a specific value.

That is my idea. Here is my situation.

I have a directory file with specific entries.

Entry1_two_term3_stuff
Entry2_two_term3_stuff
Entry3_two_term3_stuff

This will be stored into a variable. How do I search this for Entry2 and then get the whole line to work with?

Answer 1

If you can, use the file() function to load the file into array, already split by newlines:

$lines = file('filename.txt');

If not, you can use

$lines = explode("\n", $contents);

You might want to use \r\n if you’re on Windows and file contains CR characters.

To search the array, use foreach:

foreach ($lines as $ix => $line)
    if (strpos ($line, 'string') !== false)
        $lines[$ix] = ...new version of line...

In the end, write contents back to some file:

$fp = fopen('file.txt', 'w+');
foreach ($lines as $line)
    fputs($fp, $line);
fclose($fp);