Notepad is not a viable PHP editor
Last night I needed to edit a few lines in a php file on one of my sites. I loaded up my ftp client and grabbed a copy of the file onto my local machine.
Not paying attention I just double-clicked on the file and it opened up for editing. After changing a few lines I saved it and put it back on the server, overwriting the previous copy. That is when all hell broke loose!
My site started acting wonky and blank pages were showing up in some areas but not in others. That is when I looked a little closer at the file on my desktop and noticed the notepad icon.
I quickly opened the file in one of my code editors and fixed the problem.
The key point here is that unless you are using a Microsoft IDE product DO NOT use a Microsoft text editing program (Word, Wordpad, Notepad) to edit a php file. when those programs save a file they throw a bunch of non-standard characters in there that cause problems.
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Download vim for Windows! It’s called gvim.
http://www.vim.org/download.php#pc
Ryan!
I have not heard from you in so looooong!
I have a few C++ IDEs that I normaly use for text editing. This was just a spur of the moment edit I needed to make in a configuration file. The program I used to use with my FTP client for editing directly on the server did not make the Vista transition and I was feeling too lazy to spend the time logging directly into my server and editing the file that way.
Is vim similiar to vi?
Vim = vi improved! :)
Hi Steve,
Have you looked at Notepad ++ ??
It is an open source editor for windows. It is one of my favorite editors… certainly my favorite free one… much more friendly than VIM in my opinion, see what you think:
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Jez
I have my various IDEs and something called TextPad.
I used to use something, Context was it? But it was a system hog on my old computer. 2GB of RAM is so liberating!
I had the same problem a few months ago with my Php files. I, too, stopped using Notepad as a “convenient” editor.
I haven’t edited my PHP files in a while but when I do, I use PFE (Programmer’s File Editor). Maybe that’s why I haven’t ran into your particular issue. Mine is version 7.02 or something - freeware at the time.
TextPad is supposed to be great! I also use UltraEdit when I need to look at Hex values so I can see those unprintable characters.