cannot open file

[jimfog]

Ι am trying to open a file using the fopen function, the code is the following:

<?phpfopen("c:\\xampp\\htdocs\\hijohn.txt","r")?>

I have setup a XAMPP server in my system for testing.I am relative new to PHP and i cannot understand what am i doing wrong.the file containinig the code is also named hijohn.That is the browser URL i type to access the file:http://localhost/hijohn.php Any help is appreciated since i am trying to grasp this powerful language.Thanks.

[jeffman]

With a semi-colon at the end, that should return a resource that you can use with fread. fopen does not return any real data. If you were hoping that fopen would output the data to a browser, uh-uh. You could do that like this:$data = file_get_contents("c:\\xampp\\htdocs\\hijohn.txt");echo $data;What exactly are you trying to do?

[jimfog]

With a semi-colon at the end, that should return a resource that you can use with fread. fopen does not return any real data. If you were hoping that fopen would output the data to a browser, uh-uh. You could do that like this:$data = file_get_contents("c:\\xampp\\htdocs\\hijohn.txt");echo $data;What exactly are you trying to do?

I am not trying to do anything particular.I am just start learning PHP.So, and in relation to what you said, whatever the php command, nothing will be output to the browser unless i use the echo statement.Correct?Am i saying it correctly?

[jeffman]

There are several ways to output data to the browser. fopen is not one of them. echo is the most common way to output a string (which can contain HTML or any other kind of data). readfile is specifically designed to output file contents directly. See if the example looks like something you'd want.

[jimfog]

There are several ways to output data to the browser. fopen is not one of them. echo is the most common way to output a string (which can contain HTML or any other kind of data). readfile is specifically designed to output file contents directly. See if the example looks like something you'd want.

I used the file get contents function(as you did) to do my job.And it worked.D..... it's amazing what computers can do, so few lines of code, yet, so much power.Thanks.

[jeffman]

The old fopen, fread, fclose functions are analogous to traditional Unix system functions, so you see them used a lot in legacy code (not to mention C applications). They're a little closer to the metal, as they say, but needlessly so in a scripting environment. The newer functions allocate memory and buffers more efficiently, too.