PHP Tutorial - PHP file_get_contents() Function

Definition

file_get_contents() takes the filename to open. It returns the contents of the file as a string, complete with new line characters \n where appropriate.

The file_get_contents() reads a file into a string.

Syntax

PHP file_get_contents() Function has the following syntax.

file_get_contents(path,include_path,context,start,max_length)

Parameter

Parameter	Is Required	Description
path	Required.	File to read
include_path	Optional.	Set to '1' to search for the file in the include_path defined in php.ini
context	Optional.	Context of the file handle. Context is a set of options that can modify the behavior of a stream. Can be skipped by using NULL.
start	Optional.	Where in the file to start reading.
max_length	Optional.	How many bytes to read.

Return

The function returns the read data or FALSE on failure.

Note

This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE.

Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

Example


<?PHP//from w  ww  .jav  a2s . co  m
      $filename = "test.txt";
      $filestring = file_get_contents($filename);
      if ($filestring) {
             print $filestring;
      } else {
             print "Could not open $filename.\n";
      }
      
      echo file_get_contents("test.txt");
?>

The code above generates the following result.

Example 2

The following code shows how to get and output the source of the homepage of a website.



<?php
$homepage = file_get_contents('http://www.java2s.com/');
echo $homepage;
?>

The code above generates the following result.

Example 3

The following code shows how to read entire file into a string.


//from  ww  w  . ja v  a 2  s  .com
<?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.java2s.com/', false, $context);
?>