PHP Increment a counting variable in a text file

Question

This seems simple but I can\'t figure it out.

file_get_contents(\'count.txt\');
$variable_from_file++;
file_put_contents(\'count.txt\', $variable_from_file);         


        

Answer 1

There is a slightly funnier way:

file_put_contents("count.txt",@file_get_contents("count.txt")+1);

file_get_contents reads the contents of the counter file.
@ tells PHP to ignore the error of a missing file. The returned false will then be interpreted as the count of 0.
+1 will cause the string to be converted to a number.
file_put_contents then stores the new value in the counter file as a string.

On a very busy system you might want to obtain a file lock first (if the OS permits) to prevent simultaneous writes.