Question

I have the following code but I’m trying to shorten it about one or two lines, as I believe the if is unnecessary. Is there any way the code below can shortened to a singular line?

 if(file_exists($myFile))
    {
        $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a');
        fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
    }
    else
    {
        $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w');
        fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
    }
    

Answer 1

if (file_exists($myFile)) {
  $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a');
  fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
} else {
  $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w');
  fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
}
fclose($fh);

==

if (file_exists($myFile)) {
  $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a');
} else {
  $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w');
} 
fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
fclose($fh);

==

$fh = fopen($myFile, (file_exists($myFile)) ? 'a' : 'w');
fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
fclose($fh);

== (because a checks if the file exists and creates it if not)

$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a');
fwrite($fh, $message."\n");
fclose($fh);

==

file_put_contents($myFile, $message."\n", FILE_APPEND);

…of course, file_put_contents() is only better if it is the only write you perform on a given handle. If you have any later calls to fwrite() on the same file handle, you’re better going with @Pekka’s answer.