[SOLVED] is it possible to append at beginning of a file

[abdfahim]

Is it possible to append/write something at beginning of a file without deleting the existing contents?

[thebadbad]

I don't think so, you'll have to read in the contents of the file, and then write your new content + the old contents to the file.

[mlin]

In the sense your thinking of...no (say that since we've all been there )

 

Your gonna have to read your file into a variable. Set another var with the content you'd like at the beginning of your file, and concantenate them together, then rewrite the file.

 

$old_file = file_get_contents(...);

$new_stuff = '...';

 

$file = $new_stuff . "\n" . $old_file;

 

//rewrite the file

 

best we get for flat files, but that goes for most scripting languages. Even if there is some magic function in other languages, this is probably the process when you get down to the meat and potatoes.

 

beaten to it again...gotta stop being so longwinded

[abdfahim]

they shud have some built-in function like this .. LOLZ ... so I guess if my existing file is too big, it won't create any problem saving file contents to a variable.

[mlin]

as long as you have enough memory, your good to go. But yes, it is possible to run into problems with large files. If it's really an issue, think about using a db for your app rather than flat files.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

If your file could grow to be bigger than the available memory, then you would need to read/write smaller blocks.

 

In a real world application, you would actually create a new temporary output file, write the new content to the beginning, then read blocks of your existing file and write it to the new file. Then after you have successfully written to the temporary output file, delete your old original file and rename the temporary output file to be the new actual file.

 

If there is a chance of multiple concurrent access, you would need to use file locking to prevent loss of data.

 

If this is something like a blog or an article site were you are doing this to put newer content at the start of a file so it is output first, you seriously need to consider using a database as it avoids all the problems of getting the data in the order you want and concurrent updates/file locking issues.

[abdfahim]

Ok ... so the decision is ... there is no built in method which write text in the beginning of the file.