[RESOLVED] Inserting info into a file

mrbaseball34

I'm trying to build an installation script for a tool. It needs to open a PHP file, locate a specific line and insert multiple lines BEFORE the located line.
How would I do that? The line I need to find looks like this:

        $smarty->assign(array(
            'products' =>

Note: 2 tabs before $smarty and a CR/LF after array(

I've tried getting the file contents in a string and replacing it but it doesn't replace it at all.

johanafm

Why not change the code into a function call

function install_stuff($install_changes_and_additions) {
	$default = array(
					'products' => 123,
					/* ... */
				);
	# $install_changes_and_additions elements will overwrite $default elements
	# if they have the same non-numeric key.
	$use_these = array_merge($default, $install_changes_and_additions);

/* ... */
}

mrbaseball34

You don't understand, I'm editing a PHP file and need to add more lines to it.

johanafm

Yes, I do understand that, and I'm suggesting actually manually altering the file to achieve what you want by a simple function call instead of dynamically rebuilding the php file each time.

But if you really want to go about it the hard way, use preg_match with the flag PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, read the file into a string, grab the substring from 0 to $match[0][1], concatenate with your additional code and concatenate with the file contents from $match[0][1].

mrbaseball34

NO, you DON'T understand. This had nothing to do with merging arrays, like in your code.

johanafm

You still should NOT modify the file dynamically. Whatever you need to get in there can be done better, smarter and quicker. For example, adding $ret = callback(); before the array should be able to deal with whatever you want.

mrbaseball34

Man, you are way off base, I'm going to mark this thread resolved and repost because this is going nowhere.