Question

In a text file I have a file like this:

Olivia
7

Sophia
8

Abigail
9

Elizabeth
10

Chloe
11

Samantha
12

I want to print out all the name only and ignore the numbers.

For some reason, it dont work – it wouldn’t print anything?

<?php
$file_handle = fopen("names.txt", "rb");
while (!feof($file_handle) ) {
  $line_of_text = fgets($file_handle);
  if (!is_numeric((int)$line_of_text)) { 
    echo $line_of_text;
    echo "<br />";
  }
}
fclose($file_handle);
?>

Answer 1

You are casting every line with (int). So even lines that are strings will become 0 (zero).

You can change your code to:

!is_numeric($line_of_text)

Note: is_numeric() will return true for decimals and scientific notation also. If you are strictly determining if the line contains digits, I suggest ctype_digit()

UPDATE

You will also need to trim($line_of_text) as fgets() includes the newline.

Code inside while():

  $line_of_text = trim(fgets($file_handle));
  if (!ctype_digit($line_of_text)) { 
    echo $line_of_text;
    echo "<br />";
  }