Is this the most efficient way to get and remove first line in file?

Question

I have a script which, each time is called, gets the first line of a file. Each line is known to be exactly of the same length (32 alphanumeric chars) and terminates with \"

Answer 1

This will shift the first line of a file, you dont need to load the entire file in memory like you do using the 'file' function. Maybe for small files is a bit more slow than with 'file' (maybe but i bet is not) but is able to manage largest files without problems.

$firstline = false;
if($handle = fopen($logFile,'c+')){
    if(!flock($handle,LOCK_EX)){fclose($handle);}
    $offset = 0;
    $len = filesize($logFile);
    while(($line = fgets($handle,4096)) !== false){
        if(!$firstline){$firstline = $line;$offset = strlen($firstline);continue;}
        $pos = ftell($handle);
        fseek($handle,$pos-strlen($line)-$offset);
        fputs($handle,$line);
        fseek($handle,$pos);
    }
    fflush($handle);
    ftruncate($handle,($len-$offset));
    flock($handle,LOCK_UN);
    fclose($handle);
}