PHP: fclose - Manual

Description

bool fclose ( resource handle )

The file pointed to by handle is closed.

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

The file pointer must be valid, and must point to a file successfully opened by fopen() or fsockopen().

Example 1. A simple fclose() example

<?php $handle = fopen('somefile.txt', 'r'); fclose($handle); ?>

User Contributed Notes
fclose

jricher at jacquesricher dot com
01-Feb-2005 08:06


It is a GOOD_THING to check the return value from fclose(), as some operating systems only flush file output on close, and can, therefore, return an error from fclose(). You can catch severe data-eating errors by doing this. 



I learned this the hard way.

kumar mcmillan
30-Sep-2004 02:10


gotcha:



<?php



$file_pointer = fopen('data.dat', 'r');

fclose($file_pointer);



echo '$file_pointer is resource = ' . (is_resource($file_pointer) ? 'true': 'false');



?>



output:

$file_pointer is resource = true

daniel7 dot martinez at ps dot ge dot com
10-Sep-2001 06:06


Generally, it's always a good idea to close a file when you're done with it. It's very easy for something to go wrong and corrupt a file that hasn't been closed properly. If you're concerned about efficiency, the overhead is negligible.