File put contents fails if you try to put a file in a directory that doesn't exist. This creates the directory.

<?php
    function file_force_contents($dir, $contents){
        $parts = explode('/', $dir);
        $file = array_pop($parts);
        $dir = '';
        foreach($parts as $part)
            if(!is_dir($dir .= "/$part")) mkdir($dir);
        file_put_contents("$dir/$file", $contents);
    }
?>

It should be obvious that this should only be used if you're making one write, if you are writing multiple times to the same file you should handle it yourself with fopen and fwrite, the fclose when you are done writing.

Benchmark below:

file_put_contents() for 1,000,000 writes - average of 3 benchmarks:

 real 0m3.932s
 user 0m2.487s
 sys 0m1.437s

fopen() fwrite() for 1,000,000 writes, fclose() -  average of 3 benchmarks:

 real 0m2.265s
 user 0m1.819s
 sys 0m0.445s

A slightly simplified version of the method: http://php.net/manual/ru/function.file-put-contents.php#84180

<?php 
function file_force_contents( $fullPath, $contents, $flags = 0 ){
    $parts = explode( '/', $fullPath );
    array_pop( $parts );
    $dir = implode( '/', $parts );
    
    if( !is_dir( $dir ) )
        mkdir( $dir, 0777, true );
    
    file_put_contents( $fullPath, $contents, $flags );
}

file_force_contents( ROOT.'/newpath/file.txt', 'message', LOCK_EX );
?>

It's important to understand that LOCK_EX will not prevent reading the file unless you also explicitly acquire a read lock (shared locked) with the PHP 'flock' function.

i.e. in concurrent scenarios file_get_contents may return empty if you don't wrap it like this:

<?php
$myfile=fopen('test.txt','rt');
flock($myfile,LOCK_SH);
$read=file_get_contents('test.txt');
fclose($myfile);
?>

If you have code that does a file_get_contents on a file, changes the string, then re-saves using file_put_contents, you better be sure to do this correctly or your file will randomly wipe itself out.

Please note that when saving using an FTP host, an additional stream context must be passed through telling PHP to overwrite the file.

<?php
 /* set the FTP hostname */
 $user = "test";
 $pass = "myFTP";
 $host = "example.com";
 $file = "test.txt";
 $hostname = $user . ":" . $pass . "@" . $host . "/" . $file;

 /* the file content */
 $content = "this is just a test.";
 
 /* create a stream context telling PHP to overwrite the file */
 $options = array('ftp' => array('overwrite' => true));
 $stream = stream_context_create($options);
 
 /* and finally, put the contents */
 file_put_contents($hostname, $content, 0, $stream);
?>

In reply to the previous note:

If you want to emulate this function in PHP4, you need to return the bytes written as well as support for arrays, flags.

I can only figure out the FILE_APPEND flag and array support. If I could figure out "resource context" and the other flags, I would include those too.

<?

define('FILE_APPEND', 1);
function file_put_contents($n, $d, $flag = false) {
    $mode = ($flag == FILE_APPEND || strtoupper($flag) == 'FILE_APPEND') ? 'a' : 'w';
    $f = @fopen($n, $mode);
    if ($f === false) {
        return 0;
    } else {
        if (is_array($d)) $d = implode($d);
        $bytes_written = fwrite($f, $d);
        fclose($f);
        return $bytes_written;
    }
}

?>

This functionality is now implemented in the PEAR package PHP_Compat.

More information about using this function without upgrading your version of PHP can be found on the below link:

http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_Compat

I'm updating a function that was posted, as it would fail if there was no directory. It also returns the final value so you can determine if the actual file was written.

    public static function file_force_contents($dir, $contents){
        $parts = explode('/', $dir);
        $file = array_pop($parts);
        $dir = '';

        foreach($parts as $part) {
            if (! is_dir($dir .= "{$part}/")) mkdir($dir);
        }

        return file_put_contents("{$dir}{$file}", $contents);
    }

Make sure not to corrupt anything in case of failure.

<?php

function file_put_contents_atomically($filename, $data, $flags = 0, $context = null) {
    if (file_put_contents($filename."~", $data, $flags, $context) === strlen($contents)) {
        return rename($filename."~",$filename,$context);
    }

    @unlink($filename."~", $context);
    return FALSE;
}

?>

To upload file from your localhost to any FTP server.
pease note 'ftp_chdir' has been used instead of putting direct remote file path....in ftp_put ...remoth file should be only file name

<?php
$host = '*****';
$usr = '*****';
$pwd = '**********';         
$local_file = './orderXML/order200.xml';
$ftp_path = 'order200.xml';
$conn_id = ftp_connect($host, 21) or die ("Cannot connect to host");      
ftp_pasv($resource, true);
ftp_login($conn_id, $usr, $pwd) or die("Cannot login");
// perform file upload
ftp_chdir($conn_id, '/public_html/abc/'); 
$upload = ftp_put($conn_id, $ftp_path, $local_file, FTP_ASCII);
if($upload) { $ftpsucc=1; } else { $ftpsucc=0; }
// check upload status:
print (!$upload) ? 'Cannot upload' : 'Upload complete';
print "\n";
// close the FTP stream
ftp_close($conn_id);
?>

Calling file_put_contents within a destructor will cause the file to be written in SERVER_ROOT...

A more simplified version of the method that creates subdirectories:

function path_put_contents($filePath, $contents, $flags = 0) {

    if (! is_dir($dir = implode('/', explode('/', $filePath, -1))))
        mkdir($dir, 0777, true);
    file_put_contents($filePath, $contents, $flags);
}

It's worth noting that you must make sure to use the correct path when working with this function. I was using it to help with logging in an error handler and sometimes it would work - while other times it wouldn't. In the end it was because sometimes it was called from different paths resulting in a failure to write to the log file.

__DIR__ is your friend.

I use file_put_contents() as a method of very simple hit counters. These are two different examples of extremely simple hit counters, put on one line of code, each.

Keep in mind that they're not all that efficient. You must have a file called counter.txt with the initial value of 0.

For a text hit counter:
<?php
 $counter = file_get_contents("counter.txt"); $counter++; file_put_contents("counter.txt", $counter); echo $counter;
?>

Or a graphic hit counter:
<?php
 $counter = file_get_contents("counter.txt"); $counter++; file_put_contents("counter.txt", $counter); for($i = 0; $i < strlen($counter); $i++) echo "<img src=\"counter/".substr($counter, $i, 1).".gif\" alt=\"".substr($counter, $i, 1)."\" />";
?>

File put contents fails if you try to put a file in a directory that doesn't exist. This function creates the directory.
 
i have updated code of "TrentTompkins at gmail dot com". thanks
<?php
/**
 * @param string $filename <p>file name including folder. 
 * example :: /path/to/file/filename.ext or filename.ext</p>
 * @param string $data <p> The data to write.
 * </p>
 * @param int $flags same flags used for file_put_contents.
 * more info: http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-put-contents.php
 * @return bool <b>TRUE</b> file created succesfully <br> <b>FALSE</b> failed to create file.
 */
function file_force_contents($filename, $data, $flags = 0){
    if(!is_dir(dirname($filename)))
        mkdir(dirname($filename).'/', 0777, TRUE);
    return file_put_contents($filename, $data,$flags);
}
// usage

file_force_contents('test1.txt','test1 content');  // test1.txt created

file_force_contents('test2/test2.txt','test2 content'); 
// test2/test2.txt created "test2" folder.  

file_force_contents('~/test3/test3.txt','test3 content'); 
// /path/to/user/directory/test3/test3.txt created "test3" folder in user directory (check on linux "ll ~/ | grep test3").  
?>

I suggest to expand file_force_contents() function of TrentTompkins at gmail dot com by adding verification if patch is like: "../foo/bar/file"

if (strpos($dir, "../") === 0)
    $dir = str_replace("..", substr(__DIR__, 0, strrpos(__DIR__, "/")), $dir);

file_put_contents() strips the last line ending

If you really want an extra line ending at the end of a file when writing with file_put_contents(), you must append an extra PHP_EOL to the end of the line as follows.

<?php
$a_str = array("these","are","new","lines");
$contents = implode(PHP_EOL, $a_str);
$contents .= PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL;
file_put_contents("newfile.txt", $contents);
print("|$contents|");
?>

You can see that when you print $contents you get two extra line endings, but if you view the file newfile.txt, you only get one.

An improved and enraptured code from TrentTompkins at gmail dot com  

Note: Added error response 
Note: Added directory detection
Note: Added root detection
Note: Added permissions when creating folder

function file_force_contents($dir, $contents, $flags = 0){
    if (strpos($dir, "../") === 0){
        $dir = str_replace("..", substr(__DIR__, 0, strrpos(__DIR__, "/")), $dir);
    }
    $parts = explode('/', $dir);
    if(is_array($parts)){
        $file = array_pop($parts);
        $dir = '';
        foreach($parts as $part)
            if(!is_dir($dir .= "/$part")){
                mkdir($dir, 0777, true);
            }
            if(file_put_contents("$dir/$file", $contents, $flags) === false ){
            return false;
        }
    }else{
        if(file_put_contents("$dir", $contents, $flags) === false ){
            return false;
        } 
    }
}

-Oliver Leuyim Angel