how to skip empty lines from a txt file with php

Question

I am using this code to delete an email address form a txt file named database-email.txt :

// unsubscribe
if (isset($_POST['email-unsubscribe'])) {     
$emailToRemove = $_POST['email-unsubscribe'] . ',';
$content = file_get_contents('database-email.txt');
if($content = str_replace($emailToRemove, '',  $content)) {
    echo "$emailToRemove successfully removed!";
}
else {
    echo "$emailToRemove could not be removed!";
}
file_put_contents('database-email.txt',  $content);
}

?>

My txt file looks like this:

annelore@mail.ru,
francien@live.nl,
frans@moonen.nl,
harry@hotmail.com,

jannie@live.nl,
jeanette.schmitz@live.nl,

johnny.doe@live.nl,

I tried this to skip all the empty lines in the txt file but without success:

file_put_contents('database-email.txt',  implode(PHP_EOL, file($content, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES)));

How can i skip the empty lines from database-email.txt ?

Answer 1

You could try something like this :

file_put_contents('database-email.txt',
    str_replace("\n\n", "\n", file_get_contents('database-email.txt'))
);

NB \\n depends of how you inserts lines in your file. It could be \\r\\n or PHP_EOL .

Answer 2

This should do the trick:

file_put_contents('database-email.txt', implode('', file($content, FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES)));

Alternatively:

file_put_contents('database-email.txt',preg_replace('~[\r\n]+~',"\r\n",trim($content)));

Answer 3

Use the file() function with FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES options to read the file as an array. Then use the array_search() function to search for the element and remove it if it's present. You can then implode the array and write it back to file.

Don't use your str_replace approach, it's buggy. Imagine this is your file:

abdc@domain.com

If you remove dc@domain.com you will get:

ab

You are not checking that you are replacing an entire email.

I would also suggest that you remove the commas, you don't need them if you have only one email per line.