There are also shortcuts that generally amount to a wrapper for fopen, fwrite, and fclose. There are also functions for checking permissions. If you have a C/C++ background, be sure and read the documentation for the PHP version. Even those functions with identical names and purposes often operate a little differently. You might want to scan through the list of functions that you will find on
this page and read up on the ones that capture your fancy. The PHP manual is really a very good resource.