The function fopen() takes in two arguments, the filename and the mode to either open or create a file.
- $filename - the name of the file. This may also include the absolute path where you want to create the file. Example, "/www/myapp/myfile.txt".
- $mode - mode is used to specify how you want to create the file. For example, you can set the mode to create for read only, or create a file for read and write. Below is the list of possible modes you can use.
PHP file fopen create modes
| 'w' | Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, it attempt to create it. |
| 'w+' | Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it. |
| 'a' | Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it. |
| 'a+' | Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it. |
There are additional ways to open a file.
- Read/Write: 'r+'
Opens a file so that it can be read from and written to. The file pointer is at the beginning of the file.
- Write/Read: 'w+'
This is exactly the same as r+, except that it deletes all information in the file when the file is opened.
- Append: 'a+'
This is exactly the same as r+, except that the file pointer is at the end of the file.