PHP read and execute contents of a file as a string

Question

I am trying to read a file as a string and return it to the client to be executed as javascript code in order to save it as a variable. Like so

<?php
$fileName = 'target.js';
$codeAsString = file_get_contents($fileName);
$script = 'var code=\'' . $codeAsString . '\'';
echo $script;
?>

Once returned, I want the variable code to have a string representation of the contents of target.js. However, it isn't working. I suspect it has to do with new line characters and single/double quotes... In Python they have a multi line quote

"""This
is
a "multi"
line
'quote'
"""

Is there anything like this in Javascript/php? I can't even wrap my head around whether I need the single quotes around $codeAsString when appending it to $script. Do I have to manually go in and prepend backslashes before all quotes, double quotes, back slashes...Surely they have helper functions for this

thanks.

yankee · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-14 19:31:37Z

1

json_encode is your friend...

<?php
$fileName = 'target.js';
$codeAsString = file_get_contents($fileName);
$script = 'var code= '.json_encode($codeAsString) .';';
echo $script;
?>

answered Jul 14, 2011 at 19:31

yankee

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2 Comments

puk Over a year ago

Nice! That worked almost flawlessly. Except instead of new lines, when I do console.log() I get these ghetto little carriage return symbols. Is this specific to Chrome, or does json_encode distinguish between new line and carriage return?

puk Over a year ago

if I store it in var code and do console.log(code) the carriage returns are interpretted as new lines. If, however, I store it in an object for whatever reason {src : ''} and do console.log(code), now the src attribute of code has little carriage returns. Therefore, I suspect this is Chrome specific.

Gedrox · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-14 19:31:40Z

1

Use PHP function json_encode.

answered Jul 14, 2011 at 19:31

Gedrox

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