unknown symbols when displaying textfile with php

Question

I have a .txt file that looks like this:

SamAccountName         : spiderman
Name                   : Parker, Peter
LastLogonDate          : 8/22/2019 6:08:17 AM
LastBadPasswordAttempt : 8/22/2019 11:30:58 AM
AccountExpires         : 0

SamAccountName         : ironman
Name                   : Stark, Tony
LastLogonDate          : 8/17/2019 8:39:51 AM
LastBadPasswordAttempt : 5/30/2019 4:59:39 AM
AccountExpires         : 0

SamAccountName         : captainamerica
Name                   : Rogers, Steve
LastLogonDate          : 8/19/2019 2:49:05 AM
LastBadPasswordAttempt : 6/24/2019 1:30:17 AM
AccountExpires         : 0

SamAccountName         : thor
Name                   : Odinson, Thor
LastLogonDate          : 7/25/2019 1:36:11 AM
LastBadPasswordAttempt : 7/25/2019 1:30:35 AM
AccountExpires         : 0

I now want to display that on my website as it is using PHP. I managed to do that, but somehow there always are those two unknows symbols and I don't know how to make what they mean, why they are there and how I can remove them. This is my code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<body>
    <form action="" method="post" class="formbody">
    <div class="codetable">
    <?php
    $file = 'c:\marvel\display.txt';
    $f = fopen($file, "r") or exit("Unable to open file!");
    while(!feof($f))
    {
        echo fgets($f)."<br />";
    }
    fclose($f);
    ?>
    <div class="codelabel"> 
    </div>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Here are the unknown symbols I get:

Or is there another (better) way to display it?

@suspectus I don't see any special chars. (content of .txt is the same as the box in the question) — verfluecht, Aug 26 '19 at 08:47
Are you sure, that your script is in php file with encoding UTF-8 w/o BOM, not ANSI for example ? — MorganFreeFarm, Aug 26 '19 at 08:48
@MorganFreeFarm in this case it might rather be the text file that contains a BOM, not the script itself. — misorude, Aug 26 '19 at 08:49
possible [duplicate](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/275411/php-output-showing-little-black-diamonds-with-a-question-mark) — lovelace, Aug 26 '19 at 08:50
@misorude yes, that was it. The .txt had a wrong encoding. Creating a new .txt made it. Thank you. — verfluecht, Aug 26 '19 at 08:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 26 '19 at 10:58

1

Seems like your .txt file is encoded with a wrong format. Try to create a new .txt file manually. You will need it encoded with ANSI.

edited Aug 26 '19 at 10:58

verfluecht

493
6
24

answered Aug 26 '19 at 10:31

Snoopy111

212
4
13

unknown symbols when displaying textfile with php

1 Answers1