Re: file management

You know what, I think Im explaining myself wrong. The word truncate in itself means I believe to cut at the bottom. This isn't what I need. Basically, its a chat script and all the newer messages are at the bottom, and when the file reaches x bytes I want to 'cut off the head' of the file by x lines. leaving the most current messages at the bottom alone. Ive been messing around with truncate all this time getting the wrong results. Why cant files be as easy as databases.... :) If any one has a clue please point it to me. Meantime, back to the manual..... Thanks Sterling Hughes wrote:

On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Gerard Samuel wrote:

Can a file be truncated from the beginning, and by x amount of lines?? Thanks

    Truncated from the beginning?  Do you mean truncate the file by X
    lines, starting from the first position in the file, well, yeah:

    <?php
    $fp = fopen("filename", "r+");

    // Start counting from 0, set to one, if you want to start counting
    // from 1
    $count = 0;

    while (!@feof($fp)) {
        // Not used, but unless your line lengths are longer than
        // 4K, this will effectively skip over a line
        $line = fgets($fp, 4096);

        if (++$count == $line_number_you_want) {
            ftruncate($fp, ftell($fp));
        }
    }

    fclose($fp);
    ?>

    Please note the above is devoid of error checking :)

    -Sterling