Appending to the top of a file, again

[Anon]

Ok...
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY IF YOU CAN'T SHOW A 'WORKING' EXAMPLE

Mistar Brandon Schnell I happen to search your name on these forums and did not find the example you speak of, anywho. If anyone can give me an example that actually works, I've spent too much time researching the net for them to all be bogus 🙁

Thanks,
MrDanny

[brandonschnell]

I did a search for "brandon schnell fopen" and brought up the code in a couple of clicks. If you test the code, you'll find that it does work.

http://www.phpbuilder.com/forum/read.php3?num=2&id=132384&loc=0&thread=132323

[Anon]

I'd still like to know what the penalty is =)

[kparker]

Somebody please put this question, and Brandon's very clear example he referrs to, into a virtual FAQ somewhere!

[[deleted]]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~vinny/

it's a start :-)

[yelvington]

append v 1: add to the very end; "He appended a glossary to his novel where he used an invented language" [syn: add on, supplement,
affix] 2: fix to; attach; "append a charm to the necklace" [syn: tag on, tack on, hang on] 3: state or say further; " `It doesn't matter,' " he
supplied" [syn: add, supply]

What you describe is not appending, but prepending. Filesystems do NOT support prepending to an existing file.

To get the results you want, do this:

Open the file for read. Read it into a variable. Close it.

Open the file for write. Write the new information. Then write the information you saved in the variable.

[kparker]

append

Way to go, Steve!

[to get the results]

My only minor quibble with this is that in closing and reopening the file, you allow for a race condition with multiple processes. Using Brandon's method, it's pretty multi-user safe.

[kparker]

Wow, and a good one. Thanks!

How do we send contributions? I have a little suggested revision for this one:

Note: this function reads and writes the entire file.
If you have a 35MB file, all 35MB will be read into memory
and written back to disk. This can be a slow and memory-hungry process.

What about appending the following:

... and you'd almost certainly be better off using a database in this circumstance.

???

[[deleted]]

Just mail your additions to me [e-mail]

You note has been processed :-)

[Anon]

I will be releasing the guestbook for public use shortly, expect an announcement of it sometime soon, Thanks alot Brandon. 🙂