Question

In PHP if you write to a file it will write end of that existing file.

How do we prepend a file to write in the beginning of that file?

I have tried rewind($handle) function but seems overwriting if current content is larger than existing.

Any Ideas?

Answer 1

The file_get_contents solution is inefficient for large files. This solution may take longer, depending on the amount of data that needs to be prepended (more is actually better), but it won’t eat up memory.

<?php

$cache_new = "Prepend this"; // this gets prepended
$file = "file.dat"; // the file to which $cache_new gets prepended

$handle = fopen($file, "r+");
$len = strlen($cache_new);
$final_len = filesize($file) + $len;
$cache_old = fread($handle, $len);
rewind($handle);
$i = 1;
while (ftell($handle) < $final_len) {
  fwrite($handle, $cache_new);
  $cache_new = $cache_old;
  $cache_old = fread($handle, $len);
  fseek($handle, $i * $len);
  $i++;
}
?>