PHP Forum

**yuechen** · 05-19-2009, 10:39 PM

Hi everyone! I'm pretty new at php (though not at programming; I know some Java, so all is good), so please help me out here!

I currently have a website for some writers. These writers would write stories/poems/etc and send them to me, and then I would create new html files and edit links on the site where necessary to "post" that story. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

The problem is, it takes me forever to add one of their stories because I have to first make and then edit their writing into html, and then edit links and stuff and it's just annoying.

So, I'm trying to make a php script. The problem is, everywhere i go on the web, tutorials talk about truncating a file, appending to a file, reading a file... but never "editing" a file. I know that since php is a such a powerful language, there must be a way to do this!

What I want is, say I have some code like:

Code:

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>
<p>This is my second paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>

I want to be able to, using php, change the code to... say:

Code:

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph. foo!</p>
<p>This is my second paragraph. bar!</p>
<p>This 3rd paragraph was added automagically by php.</p>
</body>
</html>

How would I accomplish this? many thanks!

**X-Cart** · 05-20-2009, 03:12 AM

Hello,

Overall, if you work with a file-based content, you simply need to open a file content via a variable, manipulate it as a string data and save a new version. That's it!

Details on file handling may be found at http://php.net/manual/en/book.filesystem.php

You may also read about string functions at http://php.net/manual/en/book.strings.php

Did it make things a bit clearer? Please, ask more questions should you need any help

**tripy** · 04:02 AM

If you can be sure that the source is always clean, then the easiest / safest route is to load the file as a DOM document, and then use the DOM functions to add new nodes (paragraphs) and change nodes value before saving the DOM to a file.

You can go the string parsing way, but it's way more error prone.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.dom.php

To load html as a DOM document:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/domdocument.loadhtml.php
To add new paragraphs:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/domdocu...ateelement.php
To save the dom as html:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/domdocument.savehtml.php

**markAtRitetek** · 05-22-2009, 09:48 AM

http://us3.php.net/file_put_contents

Look at example 1; it's simple but it might be what you're looking for.

**davidj** · 05-23-2009, 04:08 PM

i would sugest looking into a CMS

Cant you store the stories in a database rather than manipulate a flat file?

**yuechen** · 05-23-2009, 04:28 PM

A database is also very possible. It's just that, I haven't completely educated myself in php and mysql yet. :P

But the CMS I am very intrigued at. Do you know of a CMS that will perform what I'm trying to do?

**davidj** · 05-24-2009, 03:24 AM

check your pm