Page 363 - Beginning PHP 5.3

Chapter 11: Working with Files and Directories
Building a Text Editor

With the basics of PHP ’ s file and directory handling capabilities under your belt, it ’ s time to create a
simple Web - based text file editor application. The editor will display a list of text files in a designated
folder, inviting the user to edit a file by clicking its name. The edit page will simply display the file ’ s
contents in an HTML text area field, with buttons for saving changes or canceling edits.

The user will also be able to create new text files to work with. For the sake of simplicity the editor will
only handle text files with the .txt filename extension.

The Text Editor Script

Here ’ s the code for the text editor. Save it as text_editor.php in your document root folder:
< ?php

define( “PATH_TO_FILES”, “/home/matt/sandbox” );

if ( isset( $_POST[“saveFile”] ) ) {
saveFile();
} elseif ( isset( $_GET[“filename”] ) ) {
displayEditForm();
} elseif ( isset( $_POST[“createFile”] ) ) {
createFile();
} else {
displayFileList();
}

function displayFileList( $message=”” ) {
displayPageHeader();
if ( !file_exists( PATH_TO_FILES ) ) die( “Directory not found” );
if ( !( $dir = dir( PATH_TO_FILES ) ) ) die( “Can’t open directory” );

? >
< ?php if ( $message ) echo ‘ < p class=”error” > ’ . $message . ‘ < /p > ’ ? >
< h2 > Choose a file to edit: < /h2 >
< table cellspacing=”0” border=”0” style=”width: 40em; border: 1px solid
#666;” >
< tr >
< th > Filename < /th >
< th > Size (bytes) < /th >
< th > Last Modified < /th >
< /tr >
< ?php

while ( $filename = $dir- > read() ) {
$filepath = PATH_TO_FILES . “/$filename”;
if ( $filename != “.” & & $filename != “..” & & !is_dir( $filepath ) & &

strrchr( $filename, “.” ) == “.txt” ) {

echo ‘ < tr > < td > < a href=”text_editor.php?filename=’ . urlencode(

$filename ) . ‘” > ’ . $filename . ‘ < /a > < /td > ’;
echo ‘ < td > ’ . filesize( $filepath ) . ‘ < /td > ’;
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