Add data to text file - Configure format of data.

WayneS

Hello,

I have code that will let me write data to a text file but I don't know how to make it so that the information being written is always in a certain format.

The code works fine but I need the domain names being submitted from a form to always be in the format of...

http://www.domain.com

Sometimes people might enter:
domain.com or
www.domain.com

I don't want to store the domains in that format. It needs to be http://www.domain.com

The code:

(?php

$filename = "banned.txt"; //Change this to the file storing the domains.
$registered = $_GET['domain']."\n";

if (is_writable($filename)) {

if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'a')) {
echo "Cannot open $filename";
exit;
}
if (fwrite($handle, $registered) === false) {
echo "Cannot write to $filename";
exit;
}

echo "$domain was saved in $filename";
fclose($handle);

}
else {
echo "The file $filename is not writable";
}
?)

I'm not sure how to do this.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Wayne

sneakyimp

You need to learn about string parsing. try this function:

stristr()

NOTE: some domains will respond without the www. If i was you, i would use stristr() to check each string to see if it begins with "http://" and, if not, add it.

WayneS

Thanks for the help.

Much appreciated.

Wayne

sneakyimp

no problem.

for advanced checking of your URLs, you can use pattern matching. Pattern matching is a really powerful thing that PHP can do which can sift through all kinds of data looking for patterns that you specify using a 'regular expression'.

if you're interested, try searching for tutorials on regular expressions and pattern matching. also read about PHP functions like ereg_replace() and preg_match().

WayneS

All I really needed to do was have my script not accept a domain name that was not in the proper format and this works...

if (!stristr("$domain", "http://www.")) {
Do something }

Basically I just have a message there telling people what the correct format for the domain name they enter into the form should be then tell them to hit their back button to do it right.

The whole script I'm using uses the $domain variable a lot so this is easier than correcting the form input throughout the entire script.

That being said, I will have a look at ereg_replace() and preg_match().

Thanks again.