PHP: How Do I Read From a Text File?

Author: Vivek Gite Last updated: June 25, 2012 15 comments

How do I read from text file using PHP under Linux or UNIX?

PHP does supports the file reading and writing. You can open a file using the fopen() function. Once the file is open, you can use the fgets() function to read from the file.

php source code

<html>
<head>
<title>File read demo</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$file = "/tmp/file1.txt";
$f = fopen($file, "r");
while ( $line = fgets($f, 1000) ) {
print $line;
}
?>
</body>
</html>

See fopen() and fgets() for more information.

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if ($_FILES['fileUpload']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK && is_uploaded_file($_FILES['fileUpload']['tmp_name'])) { echo("<pre>"); echo file_get_contents($_FILES['fileUpload']['tmp_name']); echo("</pregt;");

15 comments… add one

Chidambaram Feb 23, 2009 @ 11:12

Thanks for the provide the coding ..
I need a another one help ,( unknow size of the text file ) using for loop to retrieve the textf ile value…

Reply Link
Balaviswanathan.V Apr 7, 2009 @ 7:17

Thanks a lot Vivek for providing necessary information and also would like to know that
Is it possible to execute perl script inside php?

Reply Link
vimal mishra Oct 1, 2009 @ 7:29

very good code

Reply Link
mc Feb 7, 2010 @ 8:53

$str = file_get_contents(“file.txt”);

Reply Link
- Mukesh Dak Jun 17, 2010 @ 13:27
  
  Really simplest way to read a file.
  
  Reply Link
Chals Mar 18, 2011 @ 6:25

if i read this file and print, than
-new line char, tabs, gets lost

is it possible to print text file as same as its in original format !

please suggest

Reply Link
Warkanum Apr 27, 2011 @ 8:24
This works for me:
```
if ($_FILES['fileUpload']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK               
      && is_uploaded_file($_FILES['fileUpload']['tmp_name'])) { 
  echo("<pre>");
  echo file_get_contents($_FILES['fileUpload']['tmp_name']); 
  echo("</pregt;");
```
Hope it helps.

Edited by admin: added pre tags.
Reply Link
- Warkanum Apr 27, 2011 @ 8:25
  
  Well, use the pre tags to display the variable with file contents with print. Obove example posted a bit weird.
  
  Reply Link
Mukesh Soni Oct 1, 2011 @ 14:56

Very very good cods & thanks for making this code

Reply Link
sh Nov 30, 2011 @ 5:18

it prints only the last line from the text file..do we need to use any foreach loop?

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lucky Jan 3, 2012 @ 20:24

hi, i want to ask a question that . it i have a test.txt file with this data .

—————-test.txt——————–
Student Table.
1- student 1
2- student 2
3- student 3
——————————————–

this file located in D:\test.txt …..
how can i read this file on web page and show out put like first line as title and other lines are same as it is.

plz help. sorry for bad english.
Thanx in advance

Reply Link
M. Muneer Jan 31, 2012 @ 10:10

Hi,
thanks its very use full code for me

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King Musa Jul 16, 2012 @ 8:27

@sh I don’t knw why it does that from your side but to me this cript does exactly the real job : what I dont undestand is that 1000
: This is gud thanks

Reply Link
Anov Siradj Aug 6, 2013 @ 19:14

Thanks, it’s very helpfull…, :)

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Arup Ghosh Jun 2, 2015 @ 18:13

Thanks for the code. Can you please elaborate how can we handle a specific column or row of text in php?

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