(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5)
file_get_contents — Reads entire file into a string
This function is similar to file(), except that file_get_contents() returns the file in a string, starting at the specified offset up to maxlen bytes. On failure, file_get_contents() will return FALSE.
file_get_contents() is the preferred way to read the contents of a file into a string. It will use memory mapping techniques if supported by your OS to enhance performance.
Note: If you're opening a URI with special characters, such as spaces, you need to encode the URI with urlencode().
Name of the file to read.
Note: Prior to PHP 6, this parameter is called use_include_path and is a bool. As of PHP 5 the FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH can be used to trigger include path search.
The value of flags can be any combination of the following flags (with some restrictions), joined with the binary OR (|) operator.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH | Search for filename in the include directory. See include_path for more information. |
| FILE_TEXT | As of PHP 6, the default encoding of the read data is UTF-8. You can specify a different encoding by creating a custom context or by changing the default using stream_default_encoding(). This flag cannot be used with FILE_BINARY. |
| FILE_BINARY | With this flag, the file is read in binary mode. This is the default setting and cannot be used with FILE_TEXT. |
A valid context resource created with stream_context_create(). If you don't need to use a custom context, you can skip this parameter by NULL.
The offset where the reading starts.
Maximum length of data read.
The function returns the read data or FALSE on failure.
Example #1 Get and output the source of the homepage of a website
<?php
$homepage = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/');
echo $homepage;
?>
Example #2 Searching within the include_path
<?php
// <= PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', true);
// > PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH);
?>
Example #3 Reading a section of a file
<?php
// Read 14 characters starting from the 21st character
$section = file_get_contents('./people.txt', NULL, NULL, 20, 14);
var_dump($section);
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
string(14) "lle Bjori Ro"
Example #4 Using stream contexts
<?php
// Create a stream
$opts = array(
'http'=>array(
'method'=>"GET",
'header'=>"Accept-language: en\r\n" .
"Cookie: foo=bar\r\n"
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
// Open the file using the HTTP headers set above
$file = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/', false, $context);
?>
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 6.0.0 | The use_include_path parameter was replaced by the flags parameter. |
| 5.1.0 | Added the offset and maxlen parameters. |
| 5.0.0 | Added context support. |
Note: This function is binary-safe.
A URL can be used as a filename with this function if the fopen wrappers have been enabled. See fopen() for more details on how to specify the filename and List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a list of supported URL protocols.
When using SSL, Microsoft IIS will violate the protocol by closing the connection without sending a close_notify indicator. PHP will report this as "SSL: Fatal Protocol Error" when you reach the end of the data. To work around this, the value of error_reporting should be lowered to a level that does not include warnings. PHP 4.3.7 and higher can detect buggy IIS server software when you open the stream using the https:// wrapper and will suppress the warning. When using fsockopen() to create an ssl:// socket, the developer is responsible for detecting and suppressing this warning.