fwrite update only if..

Maller

Hey all

i have a small login script, that logs ip and username of the people that login.
The problem is the logfile gets pretty big cause every time they refresh, it logs all of the text again.
So i was wondering if i could do so it would only update the text if the IP had changed, or something like that, so the file wouldent get that big.

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; 
$day=time(); 
$day=date("h:i:s A M d",$day);
$logname = $_SESSION['username']; 
$file = fopen("userlog.txt","a+");
fwrite($file, "Username: " . $logname . ", Date: " . $day . ", IP: " . $ip ."\r\n"); 
fclose($file);

I hope you understand this, and are able to help

Thanks
Maller

AstroTeg

Ouch. You'd have to "query" the file and find the user's current IP, then test it if it changed and enter the new IP otherwise. A database would be the way to go for this. The ASCII file IS good if all you're doing to it is adding IPs to the end of the file. But you're trying to query it and work some magic on it and thats a good time to use a database table.

nemonoman

You've got to write the whole file each time.

You can read the whole file into memory, find the line you want to change, change it, and then write it out again.

Time to consider using an actual database. This is what it's made for.

AstroTeg

Originally posted by nemonoman
You've got to write the whole file each time.

You could do binary reading and rewriting and rewrite the IP in place (fseek() I think is the function to use). But this requires a preset file layout and some planning. I do agree though - database would be the way to go...