Question

I want to create a simple logfile in PHP that later can be read by PHP.

This logfile should look like this:

1303942306 26.4 "Lore ipsum 1" 84.169.73.55 appname1 
1303942308 28.8 "Lore ipsum 2" 84.169.73.55 appname2
1304078658 31.2 "Lore ipsum 3" 80.187.103.95 appname3

As you can see it is supposed to contain the following variables:

$timestamp
$float
$text (with spaces and other special characters)
$ip
$appname

Until now there was no need to save text (with spaces) within this logfile, so I could use a simple fscanf function.

I’ve tried to use “|” as a delimiter with fscanf – but, well, it has a few “glitches” ;-):

//write to file
$statisticsfile = fopen("user.history",'a+b');
     fputs($statisticsfile, time().' | '.$float.' | '.$text.' | '.$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'].' | '.$appname."\r\n");

//read from file
    while ($userinfo = fscanf($statisticsfile, "%[0-9] | %[0-9.-] | %[a-zA-Z0-9 ,] | %[0-9.] | %[0-9]")) 
{list ($timestamp[], $float[], $text[], $ip[], $appname[]) = $userinfo;}

This code creates three problems:

1. It skips the first line in the logfile
2. the text can only contain letters and number (and all other special characters I have defined), but it such a better design if I could only exclude the delimiter
3. is fscanf really the best (fastest, least memory-consuming) function for this task? Or would a simple fget function with a delimiter be better?

I would really appreciate your help 😉

Answer 1

From your sample data, seems to me that the best way to go is the built-in csv functions, fgetcsv and fputcsv. Simply use a space as your delimiter instead of a comma. These functions will automatically be mindful of the quoted values.