Question

I’m writing a PHP script and the script outputs a simple text file log of the operations it performs. How would I use PHP to delete the first several lines from this file when it reaches a certain file size?

Ideally, I would like it to keep the first two lines (date/time created and blank) and start deleting from line 3 and delete X amount of lines. I already know about the filesize() function, so I’ll be using that to check the file size.

Example log text:

*** LOG FILE CREATED ON 2008-10-18 AT 03:06:29 ***  2008-10-18 @ 03:06:29  CREATED: gallery/thumbs 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/IMG_9423.JPG to gallery/IMG_9423.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/IMG_9188.JPG to gallery/IMG_9188.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/IMG_9236.JPG to gallery/IMG_9236.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/IMG_9228.JPG to gallery/IMG_9228.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/IMG_3104.JPG to gallery/IMG_3104.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/First dance02.JPG to gallery/First dance02.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/BandG02.JPG to gallery/BandG02.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/official03.JPG to gallery/official03.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/Wedding32.JPG to gallery/Wedding32.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:03  RENAMED: gallery/Gettaway car16.JPG to gallery/Gettaway car16.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/Afterparty05.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/IMG_9254.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/IMG_9175.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/official05.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/First dance01.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/Wedding29.jpg 2008-10-18 @ 03:08:04  CREATED: gallery/thumbs/men walking.jpg 

Answer 1

$x_amount_of_lines = 30; $log = 'path/to/log.txt'; if (filesize($log) >= $max_size)) {   $file = file($log);   $line = $file[0];   $file = array_splice($file, 2, $x_amount_of_lines);   $file = array_splice($file, 0, 0, array($line, '\n')); // put the first line back in   ... } 

edit: with correction from by rcar and saving the first line.