PHP: Automatically Creating and Updating PHP Include Files

There are times when you have some configuration data that your script needs to access, and the easiest way to store and use that is of course to just place it in a PHP file and include it. That way it is just part of your program, and the data is immediately ready to access.

Normally, this would involve you having to update that configuration file by hand whenever anything changes. This does not need to be the case, however, because PHP provides a function called var_export() that turns any PHP variable back into valid PHP code. Therefore by applying this you could update your configuration data, saving it back to the file. You could even use this to store other forms of data as a quick and easy method as shown in following example

<?php
// Include our file:
$data = array();
@include 'config.php';

// If we were asked to make changes, then do so:
if (count($_POST)) {
    // Just update/add the value to the 'data' array
    $data[$_POST['name']] = $_POST['val'];

    // Now save it to disk, create the 'full' file wrapping it in valid PHP
    $file = "\n";
    file_put_contents('config.php', $file, LOCK_EX);
}

// Echo out the current data
echo "<pre>Current Data is:\n\n";
print_r($data);
echo "</pre>\n";
?>
<form action="<?= $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post" name="myform">
<p>Key: <input type="text" name="name" value="" /></p>
<p>Value: <input type="text" name="val" value="" /></p>
<input value="Save Data" type="submit" />
</form>

This is very simplistic and only inserts single-dimensional strings. However, you can see the basic concept. Any PHP data can be re-created/stored in this manner, allowing for PHP files that "rewrite themselves" and all the power (and danger) that comes with that.

Hope it helps.