Is there a way to access a string as a filehandle in php?

Question

I'm on a server where I'm limited to PHP 5.2.6 which means str_getcsv is not available to me. I'm using, instead fgetcsv which requires "A valid file pointer to a file successfully opened by fopen(), popen(), or fsockopen()." to operate on.

My question is this: is there a way to access a string as a file handle?

My other option is to write the string out to a text file and then access it via fopen() and then use fgetcsv, but I'm hoping there's a way to do this directly, like in perl.

Answer 1

I'm horrified that no one has answered this solution:

<?php

$string = "I tried, honestly!";
$fp     = fopen('data://text/plain,' . $string,'r');

echo stream_get_contents($fp);

#fputcsv($fp, .......);

?>

And memory hungry perfect solution:

<?php

class StringStream
{
    private   $Variable = NULL;
    protected $fp       = 0;

    final public function __construct(&$String, $Mode = 'r')
    {
        $this->$Variable = &$String;

        switch($Mode)
        {
            case 'r':
            case 'r+':
                $this->fp = fopen('php://memory','r+');
                fwrite($this->fp, @strval($String));
                rewind($this->fp);
                break;

            case 'a':
            case 'a+':
                $this->fp = fopen('php://memory','r+');
                fwrite($this->fp, @strval($String));
                break;

            default:
                $this->fp = fopen('php://memory',$Mode);
        }
    }

    final public function flush()
    {
        # Update variable
        $this->Variable = stream_get_contents($this->fp);
    }

    final public function __destruct()
    {
        # Update variable on destruction;
        $this->Variable = stream_get_contents($this->fp);
    }

    public function __get($name)
    {
        switch($name)
        {
            case 'fp': return $fp;
            default:   trigger error('Undefined property: ('.$name.').');
        }

        return NULL;
    }
}

$string = 'Some bad-ass string';
$stream = new StringStream($string);

echo stream_get_contents($stream->fp);
#fputcsv($stream->fp, .......);

?>