PHP explode not filling in array spot 0

Question

I have a file we will call info.txt under UNIX format that has only the following in it:

#Dogs
#Cats
#Birds
#Rabbits

and am running this against it:

$filename = "info.txt";
$fd = fopen ($filename, "r");
$contents = fread ($fd,filesize ($filename));

fclose ($fd);
$delimiter = "#";
$insideContent = explode($delimiter, $contents);

Now everything looks to be working fine except when I display the array I get the following.

[0] => 
[1] => Dogs
[2] => Cats
[3] => Birds
[4] => Rabbits

I checked the .txt file to make sure there wasn't any space or hidden characters in front of the first # so I'm at a loss of why this is happening other than I feel like I'm missing something terribly simple. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

You can use $contents = file_get_contents("info.txt");

lunohodov
– lunohodov

2010-03-17 00:18:15 +00:00
Commented Mar 17, 2010 at 0:18 — lunohodov
– lunohodov, Commented Mar 17, 2010 at 0:18

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-17 00:06:49Z

6

explode() splits on the delimiter. If there is nothing before the first delimiter, then that's what the first element will be. Nothing. An empty string.

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 0:06

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

804k160 gold badges1.4k silver badges1.4k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Savageman Over a year ago

Right. And to overcome this, I would suggest $contents = trim($contents, $delimiter). :)

Billy Winterhouse Over a year ago

Wow I didn't even think about it that way. I got in the sense of after the delimiter. That explains it all. Thank you!

Tesserex · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-17 00:08:06Z

2

I would guess that it's because the very first character is a delimiter, so it's putting whatever's to the left of it in the first element, even if it's an empty string. So you would have to start the file with "Dogs", not "#Dogs"

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 0:08

Tesserex

17.3k6 gold badges72 silver badges108 bronze badges

Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-21 15:10:29Z

0

You're running it like

#Dogs#Cats#Birds#Rabbits

PHP splits it by cutting, thus where you have Dogs it sees it like 'Blank Space' | Dogs.

You can easily fill [0] by using array_shift($input, 1);

edited Nov 21, 2023 at 15:10

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 0:08

JonnyLitt

7737 silver badges11 bronze badges

Comments

mga · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-17 00:11:38Z

0

You could explode by newlines and not use the # at all although then you would have a trailing empty item. I guess you still have to do some integrity check (remove the first/last item if empty) after parsing.

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 0:11

mga

1,9701 gold badge24 silver badges31 bronze badges

Comments

ghostdog74 · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-17 00:47:42Z

0

another way

$f=file("file");
print_r( preg_replace("/^#/","",$f) ) ;

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 0:47

ghostdog74

346k62 gold badges264 silver badges349 bronze badges

1 Comment

Savageman Over a year ago

Well, your code would cause another issue: the trailing new line will be included in each array item. Use the flag FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES. Apart from that, It's pretty clever and elegant. Wondering which solution would perform best.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP explode not filling in array spot 0

5 Answers 5

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

5 Answers 5

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related