arrays - Writing to .txt file in columns with php

Question

I have an associative array in php, for example with the values:

"apple" => "green"
"banana" => "yellow"
"grape" => "red"

My question is, how can I write the keys and values for this array to a .txt file into two perfect columns? By which I mean into two columns with a uniform distance between them all the way down

Answer 1

You can use str_pad() php function for the output. http://php.net/manual/en/function.str-pad.php

Code:

<?php
$fruits = array( "apple" => "green",
                "banana" => "yellow",
                "grape" => "red" );

$filename = "file.txt";
$text = "";
foreach($fruits as $key => $fruit) {
    $text .= str_pad($key, 20)."  ".str_pad($fruit, 10 )."
"; // Use str_pad() for uniform distance
}
$fh = fopen($filename, "w") or die("Could not open log file.");
fwrite($fh, $text) or die("Could not write file!");
fclose($fh);

Output:

apple                 green     
banana                yellow    
grape                 red       

// Getting the length dynamically version.

<?php
$fruits = array( "apple" => "green",
                "banana" => "yellow",
                "grape" => "red" );

$filename = "file.txt";

$maxKeyLength = 0;
$maxValueLength = 0;

foreach ($fruits as $key => $value) {
    $maxKeyLength = $maxKeyLength < strlen( $key ) ? strlen( $key ) : $maxKeyLength;
    $maxValueLength = $maxValueLength < strlen($value) ? strlen($value) : $maxValueLength ;
}

$text = "";
foreach($fruits as $key => $fruit) {
    $text .= str_pad($key, $maxKeyLength)."         ".str_pad($fruit, $maxValueLength )."
"; //User str_pad() for uniform distance
}
$fh = fopen($filename, "w") or die("Could not open log file.");
fwrite($fh, $text) or die("Could not write file!");
fclose($fh);