help with file writing.

[E_ditor]

i have a problem with my php script. i am learning php still but not new to the programming concepts, just php.

my script was spose to find a file in a folder,("/list/list.txt"). this was a test folder.and it was spose to write some simple data to it. i had this problem before.

The problem is, either it doesnt open the file for writing, or there is a problem i do not know about. Please help me with this problem, thanks for your time.

code (code contains html):
<?php
$Name = $HTTP_POST_VARS["Name"];
$Message = $HTTP_POST_VARS["Message"];
$outputMessage='<hr>'.'\t'.$Name .'\t'.$Message .'\t'.'<hr>';
$file='/list/list.txt';
@ $fp = fopen($file,'r+');
fwrite($fp,$outputMessage);
fclose($fp);
?>

[thorpe]

A few problems. For starters, $HTTP_POST_VARS has long been depricated, use the $_POST array instead.

String within single quoes are not interpolated. So this....

$outputMessage='<hr>'.'\t'.$Name .'\t'.$Message .'\t'.'<hr>';

should be...

$outputMessage="<hr>"."\t".$Name ."\t".$Message ."\t"."<hr>";
// or
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>";

Next. I would avoid the error supressor @ whenever possible. Try some debugging....

$file='/list/list.txt';
if ($fp = fopen($file,'r+')) {
    fwrite($fp,$outputMessage);
    fclose($fp);
} else {
    echo "there was an error oepning the file";
}

[E_ditor]

ok here is the code i ended up with when i had thorpe's help.

<?php
$Name = $POST["Name"];
$Message = $POST["Message"];
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>";
$file="test.txt";
if ($fp = fopen($file,'r+')) {

fwrite($fp,$outputMessage); 
fclose($fp); 

} else {
echo "there was an error oepning the file";
}

?>

Now it says there was an error opening the file. But the file is there.How do i overcome this problem?

[ahundiak]

It's possible that the web serves does not have write access to the directory the script is running from. Try chmod 777 test.txt from the unix prompt.

Or start with something really simple:

$fp = fopen('/tmp/test.txt','w');
fwrite($fp,"Line 1\n");
fclose($fp);

Get that working then move on.

[E_ditor]

i have tried chmod on anther server and not sure it worked 100% correctly. can anyone tell me how to do it?

[bradgrafelman]

Type 'man chmod' on the Unix CLI to get help, but basically it's just: chmod mode file

[shortj75]

try to declare the directory test.txt is in $file="../dir the file is in/test.txt";

<?php
$Name = $_POST["Name"];
$Message = $_POST["Message"];
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>"; 
$file="../dir the file is in/test.txt";
if ($fp = fopen($file,'r+')) {

fwrite($fp,$outputMessage); 
fclose($fp); 
} else { 
echo "there was an error oepning the file"; 
} 

[E_ditor]

heres what i got so far. i used http://us3.php.net/chmod to learn chmod. and still it doesnt work."there was an error opening the file" still is there. i am using bravenet.com professional hosting to host this script. i also used every mode i could think of. and didnt work.the file i am writing to is in the same spot as the script. can anyone help me?

edit:i did more searching and i found out the file isnt writable. i thought chmod forced this to be writiable. but the chmod commands i give it do not work at all. heres what i got from my script.

<?php
$filename = 'test.txt';
$Name = $POST["Name"];
$Message = $POST["Message"];
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>";
if (is_writable($filename)) {
if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'a')) {
echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
exit;
}
// Write $somecontent to our opened file.
if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent) === FALSE) {
echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
exit;
}
echo "Success, wrote ($somecontent) to file ($filename)";
fclose($handle);
} else {
echo "The file $filename is not writable";
}
?>

[ahundiak]

Are you able to actually telnet/ssh into the machine and get a command prompt? If not then you may have some problems. Running chmod from inside of php won't help you much since the same thing that protected the file from being written will also protect it from being chmod'ed.

The file already exists right? Opening with r+ will not create a file. Did you try just using 'w' to get something working?

Might try using /tmp/test.txt" as most processes will allow you to write to the tmp directory.

[E_ditor]

i dont know how to use telnet/ssh to do that. and i did try the other modes.

[ahundiak]

E)ditor wrote:

i dont know how to use telnet/ssh to do that. and i did try the other modes.

0777 is fine and is all you need.

But using php's chmod command will not help if the web server does not have permission to write to the file in the first place.

Humor me and try writing a file to /usr/tmp. Permissions should not be a problem and it will rule out any other problem that might be happening such as the script not even running in the first place.

And add
error_reporting(E_ALL);
to the top of your php file. It may generate some useful messages.

You can also try using the ftp_site command though I would be surprised if it worked. Example in the comments to:
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.chmod.php

But again, rule out other possible problems by making sure you can write a file to /usr/tmp

[E_ditor]

this is what i got from your hints.
the error is "The file /usr/tmp/test.txt is not writable".

please keep the hints comming. my web site is http://www.sublimeknights.com you can go to the site and see it doesnt work for yourself.(theres a simple small form ).the site wont look better intil i get this php working. i talked to tech support and they said i had full access to php. but i am still having trouble as you can see. could it be that i have no config.php?

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);

//note-this folder and path really is there
$filename ="/usr/tmp/test.txt";
$Name = $POST["Name"];
$Message = $POST["Message"];
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>";
chmod($filename,0777);

if (is_writable($filename)) {
if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'r+')) {
echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
exit;
}

if (fwrite($handle, $outputMessage) === FALSE) {
echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
exit;
}

echo "Success, wrote ($outputMessage) to file ($filename)";

fclose($handle);

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

[E_ditor]

ok it works, here is what i did, it wasnt the coding. i opened up my hosting in the ftp mode, and manually changed the permissions though the properties.

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
//note-this folder and path really is there
$filename ="usr/tmp/test.txt";
$Name = $POST["Name"];
$Message = $POST["Message"];
$outputMessage="<hr>\t$Name\t$Message\t<hr>";
chmod($filename,0777);

if (is_writable($filename)) {
if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'r+')) {
echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
exit;
}

if (fwrite($handle, $outputMessage) === FALSE) {
echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
exit;
}

echo "Success, wrote ($outputMessage) to file ($filename)";

fclose($handle);

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