[RESOLVED] Replace Characters from whole txt file?

[middleman666]

hey people,
having a bit of trouble, basically i have a txt file that holds the latest 5 posts from a forum, trouble is im making the txt file appear in a flash movie and my flash movie doesnt like characters like " ' & # etc. so id like to:

open the txt file
save the file to a variable
replace the characters using that variable
then re-write the txt file....

heres my code:

// Read File and Save to Buffer then Close
    $myFileR = "latest.txt";
	$filesize = filesize($myFileR); 
	$fhR = fopen($myFileR, "r") or die("can\'t open file");
	$buffer = fread($fhR,$filesize);
	fclose($fhR);

//Open latest.txt and strip characters
    $fhR = fopen($myFileR, "w") or die("can\'t open file");

$array_of_invalid_characeters=array("\'","\"","\""); 
$buffer = str_replace($array_of_invalid_characters,"",$buffer); 

// Get Rid of Slashes (\)
	$buffer  = stripslashes($buffer);

// Write New Entry Then Write Buffered File
	fputs($fhR,"$buffer");
	fclose($fhR); 

i dont think my character replace code is working...
if your wondering what "\"" is, its the characters \" , but ut shows up in the txt file as \" so im not sure which i should be using etc.

EDIT: the above makes no sense as this forum is converting the string of text into the \" characters... what i said was, it writing this in the txt file: & # 9 2 ; & # 3 4 ; - but without the spaces.

any help would be much apreciated

thanks

[bastien]

try htmlentities to convert many of those special chars into the ascii equivalents...it might be easier

[_theworks]

yeh.. or [man]htmlspecialchars[/man]

like this..

<?
$string = 'heloo & welcome to my && ### website';

echo htmlspecialchars($string);

//outputs :heloo &amp; welcome to my &amp;&amp; ### website
?>

[middleman666]

thanks for your replies, but what i would really like to do is remove these characters, rather than change them into ascii equivalents.

ive succeded in doing this by using:

// Replace Characters with Nothing
	  $ReplaceThese = array("\'","\"","\"");
   	  $buffer = str_replace($ReplaceThese, '', $buffer);

...im sure i tried that before and it didnt work.. must have got my ' and " mixed up.
anyway... ive got that working but now im having another problem, id like to do the whole sequence in one swoop - so, write the latest posts to the txt file, close it, then open it to take out the bad characters...

only trouble is i get this error when trying to do so:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/1/public_html/1/1/forumlatest.php on line 29

my code is:

<?php 

$myFile = "latest.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");

$content = "content=";
fwrite($fh, $content);

include ("GetLatestMessage.php");

echo "<font face=\"verdana\" size=\"1\"><b>Latest Posts:</b></font><br>";
$LastMsg=GetLatestMessage('1.net/1/1/forum','/users/1/public_html/1/1/forum',5);

for ($i=0;$i<=4;$i++){
	echo "<a href=\"http://",$LastMsg['URL'][$i],"\" target=\"NEU\"><font face=\"verdana\" size=\"1\">",$LastMsg['subj'][$i],"</a> <br>by ",$LastMsg['auth'][$i],"</font><br><br>";
}

$theMessage = ""; 
for ($i=0;$i<=4;$i++){  

	$theMessage .= "".$LastMsg['subj'][$i]."<br>by ".$LastMsg['auth'][$i]."<br><br>";  

} 

fwrite($fh, $theMessage);

fclose($fh) 


// Read File and Save to Buffer then Close
    $myFileR = "latest.txt";
	$filesize = filesize($myFileR); 
	$fhR = fopen($myFileR, "r") or die("can\'t open file");
	$buffer = fread($fhR,$filesize);
	fclose($fhR);

//Open latest.txt and strip characters
    $fhR = fopen($myFileR, "w") or die("can\'t open file");

// Replace Spaces in UserFileName With Underscores
	  $ReplaceThese = array("\'","\"","&#92;&#34;");
   	  $buffer = str_replace($ReplaceThese, '', $buffer);

// Get Rid of Slashes (\)
	$buffer  = stripslashes($buffer);

// Write New Entry Then Write Buffered File
	fputs($fhR,"$buffer");
	fclose($fhR); 

?>

both the scripts work fine on there own so im not sure where im im going wrong, the line the error refers to is:

$myFileR = "latest.txt";

any ideas on what im doing wrong?
thanks

[middleman666]

Me = plonker... sorry guys, forgot a dam ; after the fclose.

thanks for your input.