[SOLVED] output to file echo backspace problem

[abazoskib]

PHP 5.2.6 (cli) (built: May  8 2008 08:53:44) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies

 

I am running the command

 

php scrubber.php > /tmp/scrub_output.txt &

 

to run this script and output the contents into that file.

 

Here is my output:

 

 while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
                if(isset($status)){
                        $backLength = strlen($status) + 1;
                        for($i=0;$i<$backLength;$i++)
                                echo chr(;

                }
                $rowsLeft = $rowTotal-$scrubbedRows;
                $status = "Total Rows: ".$rowTotal." |  Scrubbed Rows: ".$scrubbedRows." |  Rows Left to Scrub:".$rowsLeft." |  Scrub Started on ".$now." ";
                echo $status;

[...]

 

In my output file, I am getting a ton of "^H"  in between each echo. I am echoing BACKSPACES, which I think may be being written to the file as "^H" What is causing this and how can I fix it?

[rhodesa]

why are you echoing backspaces?

[kenrbnsn]

A backspace character will show as a ^H in many utilities that display text files. What are you trying to accomplish?

 

Ken

[abazoskib]

I am trying to limit the file size of my output file. At any point in running this script, there can be hundreds of thousands of rows left to process. I want to simply go to this file and see one sentence of information. I do not need to store an output line for each row of data, I just need the information at the point in time when I open that file.

[rhodesa]

OH...i see what you are trying to do. if you are trying to show progress, why don't you do a simple progress indicator, like so:

0%                  100%

|||||||||||||||||||||||||

that way you don't need to do any backspace characters

[abazoskib]

Very good alternative. However, I was looking for something a little more specific, as I have shown above.

[rhodesa]

it's a case where you can't have your cake and eat it too i think. the backspaces make it look pretty when it's just a normal output to the terminal...but if you pipe it to a file you will get those ^H characters.

 

the other alternative is to specify the output file as an argument...then you have full control to read, write, and delete the contents of that file

[abazoskib]

Thanks for the help.

 

Here's the code down and dirty, look good?

 

 $percent = (($scrubbedRows/$rowTotal)*100);
                if(($percent%5) == 0)
                        echo "|";

 

Of course I already echo 0% and 100% within 20 spaces of each other.