How to read file contents using file_get_contents function in PHP

In PHP, we often need to read data from files. In this case, we can use the file_get_contents function. This function can simply read everything from a file and return it as a string. This is very useful in many scenarios, such as reading configuration files, reading log files, etc.

In this article, we will introduce how to use the file_get_contents function in PHP to read file contents.

Step 1: Open the file

Before using the file_get_contents function, we need to open the file to be read. We can use the fopen function to open a file and process it as a stream. In this example, we will open a file called "example.txt" and open it in read-only mode.

$file = fopen("example.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!");

In this example, "example.txt" is the name of the file we want to read, and "r" is the mode of the file we want to open. Among them, "r" stands for read-only mode, which means that we can only read content from the file, but not write to the file.

If the file is opened successfully, this code block will return a file handle, and we can use this handle to read the contents of the file.

Step 2: Read the contents of the file

Once we have the file open, we can use the file_get_contents function to read the contents of the file. This function only accepts one parameter, which is the name of the file we want to read.

$file_content = file_get_contents("example.txt");

In this example, we pass the file name "example.txt" to the file_get_contents function, which will return a string of the entire file content.

Step 3: Close the file

After reading the file is completed, we need to close the file handle. This frees up system resources and avoids file handle leaks. We can use the fclose function to close the file handle.

fclose($file);

In this example, $file is the file handle returned when we opened the file in the first step.

Full Code Example

The following is a complete code example that demonstrates how to use the file_get_contents function in PHP to read file contents.

$file = fopen("example.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!");

$file_content = file_get_contents("example.txt");

fclose($file);

In this example, we first use the fopen function to open the "example.txt" file. Then, we call the file_get_contents function to read the contents of the file. Finally, after reading is complete, we close the file handle using the fclose function.

Summary

In this article, we introduced how to use the file_get_contents function in PHP to read file contents. Using this function you can easily read the entire contents of a file and return it as a string. This is useful for many scenarios such as reading configuration files and log files.

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