Question

I have the following PHP code that checks which choice from a radio button was selected and then write to a file of the same name.

For example, from a Radio button group called “instrument”, where the 4 choices are

1. Wind
2. Strings
3. Percussion
4. Vocal

If the user selects “Wind”, then it would create and write to a file called “wind_instrument.txt“. If “strings” is selected it would create the file “string_instrument.txt” and so on.

Here is my PHP code:

if ($_POST['instrument'] == "wind")
{


$lines = file('wind_instrument.txt');
$fopen = fopen("wind_instrument.txt", "w+");

}

elseif ($_POST['instrument'] == "strings")
{

$lines = file('strings_instrument.txt');
$fopen = fopen("strings_instrument.txt", "w+");

}

elseif ($_POST['instrument'] == "percussion")
{

$lines = file('percussion_instrument.txt');
$fopen = fopen("percussion_instrument.txt", "w+");

}

elseif ($_POST['instrument'] == "vocal")
{

$lines = file('vocal_instrument.txt');
$fopen = fopen("vocal_instrument.txt", "w+");

}

Now, if one of the conditions is met, would then go on to the next step in my code, being:

fwrite($fopen, ("Instrument: ")."");
fwrite($fopen, $_POST["instrument"]."\n");
fwrite($fopen, ("<br>")."\n");

The problem I have with this, is that it is not creating a file, and I do have permissions set.

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Answer 1

You actually could do some refactoring in order to make it easier to maintain, nevertheless that wasn’t your problem but I shall try to help you out.

<?php
  $instruments = array('wind', 'strings', 'percussion', 'vocal');

  if (in_array($_POST['instrument'], $instruments))
  {
    $instrument = $_POST['instrument'];
    $file_handle = fopen($instrument.'_instrument.txt', 'a+');
    $line = 'Instrument: '.$instrument."\n";
    fwrite($file_handle, $line);
  }
?>

The important thing to know is how I open the file. I use the mode a+. The documentation says

Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.

Hope that helps.