Simple Text Files Functions...

Ok so Im a newbie, but I really need some help with this... All I am trying to do is open a file of just text, replace 5 characters that appear once in the document with a string of text that has the variable named $string. Here was my best try... <? $substring = 'my new substring'; $fp = fopen($filename, "r") or die("sorry folks"); while (!feof($fp)){ $text = fread($fp, filesize($fp)); } fclose($fp); $fp2 = fopen($filename, "w") or die("sorry folks again"); $string = preg_replace('/(</stories>)$/', $subsrting, $text); $bytes = fwrite($fp2, $string); fclose($fp2); echo $bytes; ?> Couple of questions... (1) Why is this not working :) (2) Do i need to do something special since the characters I am searching for includes a <, /, and > ? (3) Why am I hopeless? Russ