Weird PHP Problem

[Mr. Brightside]

I've written a script in php that's run from the command line version of php. The script itself runs fine but part of its job is to produce an output which is written to a file.

When the script has finished running, I ask the user to enter a file name to save as using the following:

file_put_contents(fgets(STDIN), "(file data goes here)");

However it simply does not work and tells me the filename [fgets(STDIN)] is not valid.

I've tried the following but still get the same error.

$filename = fgets(STDIN);
file_put_contentss($filename, "(file data goes here)");

I know that fgets(STDIN) is working because I use it in other parts of the script. What am I doing wrong?

It may be worth me mentioning that I'm using version 4 something, and I'm aware file_put_contents() is new in php 5; however, I define the function file_put_contents() within the script and I know it works.

Thanks, null

 

[robmiller]

Post your custom file_put_contents() function

Edit: wait, what? What are you trying to do here? STDIN = Standard Input - IE, where a user enters data. If you're trying to write the image to the console, you'll need to use STDOUT - Standard Output. PHP defaults to using STDOUT though - ie, you can just use echo/print to write something to STDOUT.

If you're looking to take input and write it to a file, you need to do something like this:

<?php

// Read a single line of input:
$input = trim(fgets(STDIN));

// And write that input to a file called foo.txt:
$write = file_put_contents('foo.txt', $input);

if( $write )
    echo "Wrote your data to foo.txt.";
else
    echo "Couldn't write your data.";

?>

 

[Mr. Brightside]

	function file_put_contents($file, $string) {
		$file = fopen($file, 'w');
		fwrite($file, $string);
		fclose($file);
	}

Maybe it wasn't clear, it's not taking input and writing it to a file. The file contents is made by the script and I've succesfully tested that part including writing to file.

The problem is when I try and set the filename to save it as by, both when I take a user input (as in the code I quoted):

fgets(STDIN)

and when I assign the filename to a variable in the script:

$filename = "test";
file_put_contentss($filename, "(file data goes here)");

Hope this is clearer

Thanks, null

 

[robmiller]

Ah! Missed the fgets(), I'm a blind bat.

var_dump() the input and check if there's any whitespace; you might need to trim() it first.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Oops mistake on my last post. I said both fgets(STDIN) and $filename = "test" don't work. What I actually meant was that hard coding it *does* work.

I've tried var_dump and the problem is it's adding a new line on the end of the inputted filename. However, trim() doesn't seem to do anything

 

[robmiller]

Oops mistake on my last post. I said both fgets(STDIN) and $filename = "test" don't work. What I actually meant was that hard coding it *does* work.

I gathered

I've tried var_dump and the problem is it's adding a new line on the end of the inputted filename. However, trim() doesn't seem to do anything

As an aside, PHP could do with a chomp() function á la Perl, methinks.

That said, trim() should work fine. For me, this:

<?php

var_dump(trim("foo\n"));

?>

produces:

string(3) "foo"

Weird.

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Anything else that could be causing it to start a new line then... though I still can't see why it even does so

Thanks, null

edit - Perhaps a stupid suggestion but could it be caused by pressing enter at the command line to submit the input?

 

[robmiller]

Yeah, it's the user pressing the enter key - it's totally expected behaviour, the linebreak isn't anything strange. What is strange is that trim() isn't chopping the linebreak off.

Care to post your full code in case you've missed something?

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Fixed it. Was my mistake. I hadn't fully read up on trim() and assumed it acted on the string you tell it globally, rather than returing a value.

So I was doing this:

$filename = fgets(STDIN);
trim($filename);

When it should have been

$filename = trim(fgets(STDIN));

So.. my mistake. That's why I keep doing things like this - making random scripts doing random things - I learn best from doing

Thanks, null

 

[Beansprout]

Assume by default that functions return a value (though interestingly I got caught in the inverse recently by thinking that var_dump() returned a value when it just..er..dumps)

 

[Dj_Jestar]

you can use var_export to return the value

 

[Beansprout]

you can use var_export to return the value

Depends what you need...var_dump gives more info and print_r is also useful