Embed Directive in PHP

Here’s the translation of the Go embed directive example to PHP, formatted in Markdown suitable for Hugo:

In PHP, there’s no direct equivalent to the embed directive found in Go. However, we can achieve similar functionality using PHP’s built-in file handling functions. Here’s how we can replicate the behavior:

<?php

// Function to read file contents
function readFile($path) {
    return file_get_contents($path);
}

// Read the contents of single_file.txt
$fileString = readFile('folder/single_file.txt');
$fileByte = readFile('folder/single_file.txt');

// Print out the contents of single_file.txt
echo $fileString;
echo $fileByte;

// Function to read multiple files from a folder
function readFolder($path, $extension) {
    $files = glob($path . '*.' . $extension);
    $contents = [];
    foreach ($files as $file) {
        $contents[basename($file)] = file_get_contents($file);
    }
    return $contents;
}

// Read .hash files from the folder
$folder = readFolder('folder/', 'hash');

// Retrieve some files from the folder
$content1 = $folder['file1.hash'] ?? '';
echo $content1;

$content2 = $folder['file2.hash'] ?? '';
echo $content2;

In this PHP version:

1. We define a readFile function to read the contents of a single file. This is used to replicate the behavior of embedding a single file.

2. We use this function to read single_file.txt into both a string ($fileString) and a byte string ($fileByte). In PHP, there’s no distinction between string and byte string, so both variables will contain the same data.

3. We define a readFolder function that uses the glob function to find all files with a specific extension in a folder. This replicates the behavior of embedding multiple files.

4. We use this function to read all .hash files from the folder directory into an associative array.

5. We then retrieve and print the contents of specific files from this array.

To run this example, you would need to set up the folder structure and files as follows:

$ mkdir -p folder
$ echo "hello php" > folder/single_file.txt
$ echo "123" > folder/file1.hash
$ echo "456" > folder/file2.hash

Then you can run the PHP script:

$ php embed-example.php
hello php
hello php
123
456

Note that unlike the original example, this PHP version reads the files at runtime rather than embedding them at compile time. PHP, being an interpreted language, doesn’t have a compile step where files could be embedded into the binary.