Why does using "unset" on a specific line in a text file not work as expected in PHP?

Using "unset" on a specific line in a text file does not work as expected in PHP because "unset" is used to unset variables or elements in an array, not lines in a text file. To remove a specific line from a text file, you need to read the file, store the lines in an array, remove the desired line from the array, and then write the remaining lines back to the file. 

$filename = 'example.txt';
$lines = file($filename, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES);
$lineToRemove = 3; // Line number to remove
unset($lines[$lineToRemove - 1]); // Remove the desired line
file_put_contents($filename, implode("\n", $lines)); // Write the remaining lines back to the file

Keywords

unset text file PHP not working specific line

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