Calling x number of characters - help!

[Anon]

Hi all- I'm using this script to call a certain number of lines from a .htm file (in this case, 1 line). Is it possible to do the same with characters? So, for example, call the first four letters of the file or something? How would the below be modified?

<?php

$lines = "1";

$fcontents = file("$username.$password.htm");
$display_num_lines = $lines;
$actual_num_lines = sizeof($fcontents);

for ($i = 0; $i < $display_num_lines && $i < $actual_num_lines; $i++) {

echo "" . ($fcontents[$i]) . "\n";

}

?>

(I'm a bit of a novice lol)

Cheers in advance.

[Anon]

You can use fgets()...
fgets(int fp, int length)
is will read in fp length characters from the beginning of the line...

Example... you want the 4 first characters of the currant line...
<some code...>
$4chr = fgets($fp, 4);

But personnally, I would use something like that :

$fch = "file.extension";
$fp = fopen($fch, "r");
$file_content = fread($fp, filesize($fch));
$a_part_of_the_file = substr($file_content, 53, 105);
fclose($fp);

$a_part_of_the_file would start to the characters 53 of the file and go until the (53 + 106)th characters(159th character).

substr() ? take a certain portion of a string... substr(string, start [, length])

fread() ? read an entire file... fread(fp, length)

filesize() ? returns the size of the file... in this example it is used for the "length" parameter of fread()

Hope it will help.

[Anon]

Thanks HL - much appreciated.