Spaces Added When Writing to File

I have a script that reads two numbers (separated by a comma) from a txt file and adds one to one or both of the numbers. It then writes the new numbers back to the file, in the original format.

It works, however, it keeps adding spaces to the beginning of the file. Normally this wouldn't be a major problem, but this file will eventually be modified a lot of times. That could eventually make the file size huge, slowing down the script.

Here is the script (there's more to the PHP file, but this is what I'm having trouble with):
// OPEN AND READ THE FILE
$stats_file=fopen($stats_file_name,'r+');
$stats=trim(fread($stats_file,filesize($stats_file_name)));

// PARSE AND ADD 1 WHERE APPROPRIATE
$stats_values=explode(',',$stats);
$stats_values[0]++;
if ($is_unique==true){
$stats_values[1]++;
}

// WRITE NEW STATS TO FILE
$new_stats=trim($stats_values[0].','.$stats_values[1]);
$new_stats=str_replace(' ','',$new_stats);
ftruncate($stats_file,0);
fwrite($stats_file,$new_stats);
fclose($stats_file);

I've made scripts before involving such things, make use of the trim() function before you write to the file, that should solve your issue.

$stats=trim(fread($stats_file,filesize($stats_file_name)));
$new_stats=trim($stats_values[0].','.$stats_values[1]);
$new_stats=str_replace(' ','',$new_stats);

I used trim in both reading and writing. I even used str_replace to try to remove spaces manually in writing to the file.

check for new line character and start of line ......

I added $new_stats=str_replace("\n",'',$new_stats); and still got the same result.

You need to seek to the beginning of the file after the truncate.

// OPEN AND READ THE FILE
$stats_file=fopen($stats_file_name,'r+');
$stats=trim(fread($stats_file,filesize($stats_file_name)));

// PARSE AND ADD 1 WHERE APPROPRIATE
$stats_values=explode(',',$stats);
$stats_values[0]++;
if ($is_unique==true){
$stats_values[1]++;
}

// WRITE NEW STATS TO FILE
$new_stats=$stats_values[0].','.$stats_values[1];
ftruncate($stats_file,0);
fseek($stats_file,0);
fwrite($stats_file,$new_stats);
fclose($stats_file);

Actually, the seek can be either before or after the truncate.

Awesome, it worked! Thanks!

I probably should correct my last statement. Given the small test I did, it didn't matter if the seek was before or after the truncate, but in actuality, it should be done prior to the truncate.

It works before or after, but I do now have it before ftruncate.