//

// save an array as tab seperated text file

//

function write_tabbed_file($filepath, $array, $save_keys=false){

  $content = '';

  reset($array);

  while(list($key, $val) = each($array)){

    // replace tabs in keys and values to [space]

    $key = str_replace("\t", " ", $key);

    $val = str_replace("\t", " ", $val);

    if ($save_keys){ $content .= $key."\t"; }

    // create line:

    $content .= (is_array($val)) ? implode("\t", $val) : $val;

    $content .= "\n";

  }

  if (file_exists($filepath) && !is_writeable($filepath)){

    return false;

  }

  if ($fp = fopen($filepath, 'w+')){

    fwrite($fp, $content);

    fclose($fp);

  }

  else { return false; }

  return true;

}

//

// load a tab seperated text file as array

//

function load_tabbed_file($filepath, $load_keys=false){

  $array = array();

  if (!file_exists($filepath)){ return $array; }

  $content = file($filepath);

  for ($x=0; $x < count($content); $x++){

    if (trim($content[$x]) != ''){

      $line = explode("\t", trim($content[$x]));

      if ($load_keys){

        $key = array_shift($line);

        $array[$key] = $line;

      }

      else { $array[] = $line; }

    }

  }

  return $array;

}

/*

** Example usage:

*/

$array = array(

  'line1' => array('data-1-1', 'data-1-2', 'data-1-3'),

  'line2' => array('data-2-1', 'data-2-2', 'data-2-3'),

  'line3' => array('data-3-1', 'data-3-2', 'data-3-3'),

  'line4' => 'foobar',

  'line5' => 'hello world'

);

// save the array to the data.txt file:

write_tabbed_file('data.txt', $array, true);

/* the data.txt content looks like this:

line1 data-1-1 data-1-2 data-1-3

line2 data-2-1 data-2-2 data-2-3

line3 data-3-1 data-3-2 data-3-3

line4 foobar

line5 hello world

*/

// load the saved array:

$reloaded_array = load_tabbed_file('data.txt',true);

print_r($reloaded_array);

// returns the array from above