Filesystem
PHP Manual

file_put_contents

(PHP 5)

file_put_contents — Write a string to a file

Description

int file_put_contents ( string $filename , mixed $data [, int $flags [, resource $context ]] )

This function is identical to calling fopen(), fwrite() and fclose() successively to write data to a file.

If filename does not exist, the file is created. Otherwise, the existing file is overwritten, unless the FILE_APPEND flags is set.

Parameters

filename

Path to the file where to write the data.

data

The data to write. Can be either a string, an array or a stream resource (explained above).

If data is a stream resource, the remaining buffer of that stream will be copied to the specified file. This is similar with using stream_copy_to_stream().

You can also specify the data parameter as a single dimension array. This is equivalent to file_put_contents($filename, implode('', $array)).

flags

The value of flags can be any combination of the following flags (with some restrictions), joined with the binary OR (|) operator.

Available flags
Flag Description
FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH Search for filename in the include directory. See include_path for more information.
FILE_APPEND If file filename already exists, append the data to the file instead of overwriting it.
LOCK_EX Acquire an exclusive lock on the file while proceeding to the writing.
FILE_TEXT data is written in text mode. If unicode semantics are enabled, the default encoding is UTF-8. You can specify a different encoding by creating a custom context or by using the stream_default_encoding() to change the default. This flag cannot be used with FILE_BINARY. This flag is only available since PHP 6.
FILE_BINARY data will be written in binary mode. This is the default setting and cannot be used with FILE_TEXT. This flag is only available since PHP 6.

context

A valid context resource created with stream_context_create().

Return Values

The function returns the amount of bytes that were written to the file, or FALSE on failure.

ChangeLog

Version Description
5.0.0 Added context support
5.1.0 Added support for LOCK_EX and the ability to pass a stream resource to the data parameter
6.0.0 Added support for the FILE_TEXT and FILE_BINARY flags

Notes

Note: This function is binary-safe.

Tip

You can use a URL as a filename with this function if the fopen wrappers have been enabled. See fopen() for more details on how to specify the filename and List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a list of supported URL protocols.

See Also


Filesystem
PHP Manual