[RESOLVED] File editing

[rremm2000]

Hello and thanks for reading my question about file handling with php.

Here's what I would like to do :eek:

I have a php file with an array of banned IP addresses that looks so....

<?php

BanIP['1']     = "116.18.66.206";
BanIP['2']     = "116.18.66.228";
BanIP['3']     = "116.18.67.78";
BanIP['4']     = "12.104.1.241";
BanIP['5']     = "12.110.20.22";
BanIP['6']     = "12.145.167.134";
BanIP['7']     = "12.147.151.38";
BanIP['8']     = "12.159.171.230";
BanIP['9']     = "12.162.39.217";
BanIP['10']    = "12.163.240.199";

?>

I have no problem reading the file and banning the offender, but I would like to be able to add to the file.

I can't seem to use the append unless I'm using it incorrectly

					$fp = fopen($f,'a');
					fwrite($fp,"$log\n");
					fclose($fp);

what appears to happen is the new entry is added after the "?>"

Is there a way to read the file unil it sees "?>" Then have it to to a previous line insert a line

BanIP['11'] = "120.1.241.1";
?>

Thanks for any help

[NogDog]

Yep, that's what append does: it appends it to the end of the file. The quick fix would be to leave the ending "?>" out of the file. (It is not really necessary, as the PHP parser will assume it is there if there is an unclosed "<?php" when it gets to the end of the file.)

A more robust fix might be to not have it be a PHP file at all, but rather a delimited text file that you could read/parse with [man]fgetcsv/man, or in a .ini file format that can be parsed via [man]parse_ini_file[/man].

[MarkR]

Another option would be to ban the offenders in a .htaccess file for the web server.

No matter what you do, when modifying a file, be very careful that:

1. The file isn't written and read at the same time - either use locking (probably not an option for an include()'d file because that won't lock it) or update it atomically somehow.
2. You have some mechanism of versioning so that you don't inadvertently overwrite it when you next upload a new build of your code to the production server. This is a deployment issue.

Mark

[NogDog]

For that matter, a database solution would take care of all these issues. 🙂

[rremm2000]

Thanks guys, I guess I'll move to the data base option, I wanted to avoid the data base just to make it faster and didn't want another load applied for banning control.

Thanks for all the input from all you guys...🙂