This defect is also applicable to the function fgets().

Wez, could you plz comment this?

Without having had time to dig deeper just yet, if you open for write only, you shouldn't expect to be able to read.  This application-level error is reflected as EOF.

So the question becomes, is this behavior different from libc, and did the php behavior change between releases? (I'm not including PHP 6 in that, because it is not released yet)

If the latter, we need to fix it, it not, we probably shouldn't fix it if there's a risk of breaking an app.

I'm leaning towards won't fix; you should open the file as you intend to use it.

I have tried similar stuff on C language and and found that feof doesn't get changed by using fgetc() on file opened in write only mode. The documentation of fgetc() for C says that it returns an int or EOF on end of the file or an *error*. 

I haven't have enough time to look at any other version other than php6 and 5 (:

I think that same thing can be done for php, the application level error should be reported as false and this should be documented. Even other wise if you decide to have the EOF as application level error then it should be documented. 

Sample code that i use for checking it fgetc() on C :
#include <stdio.h>
int main ( void )
{
  FILE *fp;
  char ch;

  fp = fopen("test.txt", "w");
  fwrite("testing", 7, 1, fp);

  rewind(fp);
  printf("\nftell() returns = %d\n", ftell(fp) );
  printf("\nfeof() returns = %s\n", ( feof(fp) ? "true" : "false") );

  // try read
  printf("\nfgets() returns = %d\n", fgetc(fp) );
  printf("\nftell() returns = %d\n", ftell(fp) );
  printf("\nfeof() returns = %s\n", ( feof(fp) ? "true" : "false") );

  fclose(fp);
}

Output:

ftell() returns = 0

feof() returns = false

fgets() returns =-1

ftell() returns = 0

feof() returns = false

Wez, better that you decide. ;)

No feedback was provided for this bug for over a week, so it is
being suspended automatically. If you are able to provide the
information that was originally requested, please do so and change
the status of the bug back to "Open".

This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.

The code wasn't checking for EOF.