How to read and write an entire file

Three functions to read an entire file

Function	Description
file($name)	Description Returns an array with each element containing one line from the file.
file_get_contents($name)	Returns the contents of the file as a string.
readfile($name)	Reads a file and echoes it to the web page.

A function to write an entire file

Function	Description
file_put_contents($name, $data)	Writes the specified data string.

How to read and write text

Read text from a file

      $text = file_get_contents('message.txt');
      $text = htmlspecialchars($text); 
      echo("<div>$text</div;>");

Write text to a file

      $text = "This is line 1.\nThis is line 2.\n"; 
      file_put_contents('message.txt', $text);

How to read and write arrays

Read a file into an array

      $names = file('usernames.txt'); 
      foreach ($names as $name) { 
        echo("<div>$name</div;>");
      }

Write an array to a file

      $names = array('joelmurach', 'rayharris', 'mikemurach'); 
      $names = implode("\n", $names); 
      file_put_contents('usernames.txt', $names);

Description

PHP provides functions that let you read an entire file into a string variable and write a string variable to a file.
PHP also provides functions that let you read the lines of a file into an array and write the elements of an array to the lines of a file

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