In what scenarios would it be necessary to consider using alternative methods or functions for writing content to a file in PHP, instead of relying on fwrite?

When writing content to a file in PHP, it may be necessary to consider using alternative methods or functions instead of relying solely on fwrite if you need to handle more complex data structures, handle file locking, or ensure atomic writes. In these scenarios, functions like file_put_contents() or using file locking mechanisms like flock() may be more suitable. 

// Using file_put_contents() to write content to a file
$file = 'example.txt';
$content = 'Hello, World!';
file_put_contents($file, $content);

// Using flock() for file locking when writing content to a file
$file = 'example.txt';
$handle = fopen($file, 'a');
if (flock($handle, LOCK_EX)) {
    fwrite($handle, 'Hello, World!');
    flock($handle, LOCK_UN);
}
fclose($handle);

Keywords

file_put_contents fopen stream_context_create error handling permissions

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