[Resolved] text files

[siobhan]

Is it possible to have the contents of a text file display on a page without actually inserting the text into a mysql database?

e.g.if I have the file name:
mywebsite.com/joe.txt

can i display the text in joe.txt on a page and just include the filename in the database (kind of like images)

siobhan

[bastien]

Hi Soibhan,

How's life?

Sure, you can show the text easily...instead of a mysql call, you open and read the file. The best way then is to split the file into an array and you can step thru the array and show what you want. If the text file is coherent in nature, (ie all data is in the same format) it makes it very easy.

hth

[laserlight]

Is it possible to have the contents of a text file display on a page without actually inserting the text into a mysql database?

Yes.
You can read the file and display the contents, or even just include it.

[siobhan]

How easy is that!

Nice to hear from you again too Bastien!

Okay I wasn't sure exactly how to do the open and run so I opted for the include. Which is very easy when you have the exact filename.

However, I am trying to write and include statement that includes an echo, because the file format for each game is basically the same i.e.

gamename/gamename/texts/gamename_long.txt

So of if I try to include the following url

http://www.ginzagames.com/images/TopGun/TopGun/texts/TopGun_long.txt I write

<?php include('<?php echo $row_rs_dgame['name'];'. '/'.'<?php echo $row_rs_dgame['name'];'. '/'.'texts/'.'<?php echo $row_rs_dgame['name'];'._long.txt'

Of course, that's a big mess and not at all right, can you let me know how to write this properly??

Thanks
siobhan

[bastien]

try this:

<?php 
$file = $row_rs_dgame['name']. '/' . $row_rs_dgame['name']. '/texts/' . $row_rs_dgame['name'] . '_long.txt';

include($file);
?>

[siobhan]

Thanks this works! Just one catch...

I now have to write an "if" statement to prevent error messages from showing up if the string does not exist.
see: http://www.ginzagames.com/gamedisplayinclude2.php?recordID=4400

That's if the string works all right.

But change the record id number to something like 50000

http://www.ginzagames.com/gamedisplayinclude2.php?recordID=50000

and then the error messages come up.

What would I put in the if statement? how can i validate the string? I've tried if $file= true but that's definitely wrong. Also, ideally if the file isn't valid I don' t want anything to show up--it just to be left blank. How do I show that?

<?php
$file = 'http://www.ginzagames.com/images/'.$name2.'/'.$name2.'/texts/'.$name2.'_long.txt';
if ($file = true)
{
echo $file.'<br></br>';
include($file);
}
else
{
}

?>

[bastien]

use the file_exists() function

if (file_exists($filename)) {
   echo "The file $filename exists";
} else {
   echo "The file $filename does not exist";
}

for the if, to check the record id, just run the a query again...or also place it in the seesion variable and compare the two...

[siobhan]

Thanks Bastien.

It returns file does not exist, even if the file is on the server.

The code I have is below. Even if I put the string manually into file_exists (I type in the actual filepath rather than letting it be constructed by variables) it comes back as file does not exist??

<?php
$file = 'http://www.ginzagames.com/images/'.$name2.'/'.$name2.'/texts/'.$name2.'_long.txt';

if (file_exists($file)) {
echo "The file $file exists";
include($file);
} else {
echo "The file $file does not exist";
}

[bastien]

You are using the fully qualified URL, not the physical path on the machine

Try to make the path relative to the current folder where the page is...the bleow example assumes that the file in in the root below the images fodler.

<?php
$file = "/images/'.$name2.'/'.$name2.'/texts/'.$name2.'_long.txt';

if (file_exists($file)) {
echo "The file $file exists";
include($file);
} else {
echo "The file $file does not exist";
}

[siobhan]

That was exactly the problem! Always so helpful🙂

siobhan