PHP: Create a New Text File & Write Content to it

John on March 17, 2021

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a text file in PHP and write some content to it.

Create a File

The first step is to open the file you wish to create using the PHP fopen() function and store the result in a variable:

$list = fopen('list.txt', "w");

The first argument is the path to the file to create and the second is the mode, which is w (write).

Writing Content to the File

Now we can write content to the file using the PHP fwrite() function. The first argument is the file object we previously created and the second is the content to add.

fwrite($list, 'Some content.');

Closing the File

The file must be closed at some point in your program to stop it eating memory. This is done using the fclose() function and passing the file object as the first argument.

fclose($list);

Full Example

Here is the full example of creating a file, adding content to it then closing the file:

$list = fopen('list.txt', "w");
fwrite($list, 'Some content.');
fclose($list);