PHPTodoTxt

PHP library for the todo.txt unstructured todo list format.

What is todo.txt?

It's a simple file format for the todo text file that many people probably have on their desktop somewhere.

A todo.txt file following this standard looks like this:

A simple task is just a line
x This task is done, indicated by the lowercase x
(F) Prioritization is important, so this is priority F
2025-01-01 This task has its creation date mentioned
x 2025-01-01 2024-05-01 This task is done and has a completion and creation date
For +myCoolProject I need to write documentation
When I'm @work I need to plan my next vacation

You get the gist. It's simple, but more structured than just writing down stuff.

To lean more, you can head to todotxt.org to learn more.

Features

• Robustly parses the todo.txt
• Provides an easy-to-use model to access and modify tasks
• Task description is available als "clean" version without trailing tags
• Projects, contexts and meta data are available separately as arrays

Installation

Use composer to add as dependency:

$ composer require tshw/php-todo-txt

Usage

Create an object of the main class by reading tasks from a file:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$todos = \PhpTodoTxt\TodoTxt::readFromFile(new \SplFileInfo("todo.txt"));
// or if don't want to think about the SPL
$todos = \PhpTodoTxt\TodoTxt::readFromFile("todo.txt");

List all tasks:

foreach ($todos as $task) {
   echo $task->getText();
   echo $task->isDone() ? 'Done' : 'TODO';
}

Modify tasks:

$todos[4]->done();
$todos[5]->addProject('myFancyProject'); 

Write tasks to a file:

$todos->writeToFile(\SplFileInfo("todo.txt"));

Add task:

$task = (new Task("Another task", "F"));
$todos->addTask($task);

Move task within the list (this displaces tasks further down in the list, changing their keys!):

$todos->moveTask($task, 2);

FAQ

Can I use PHPTodoTxt to store tasks in a database?

Absolutely. For now, the easiest way is to use toStringArray() and fromStringArray() and then you have to implement storing and reading to/from the database yourself:

$tasks = readTasksFromDatabase();  // must return an array of strings, one task per line
$todos = TodoTxt::fromStringArray($tasks);
// do whatever with the list
$tasks = $todos->toStringArray();
writeTasksToDatabase($tasks);

License

This code is offered open-source under the GPLv3 license.