Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : PHP: Run URL and capture output in a variable

[wigwam]

What PHP function can I use to RUN a URL and then capture the output in a URL??

I can't use fopen() or any of the file opening functions because a file is not returned, only a short string.

This short string is displayed in my browser if I request the URL with my browser. I can't find any PHP functions that can read the output of a URL if it is not a file.

This is such a basic thing to want to do.

How would you do it??

Thanks a lot,
Paul

[UberTec]

so you just want to get the contents of a url into a string?


file_get_contents()

http://www.php.net/file_get_contents

[Burhan]

Most of the file opening functions have URL wrappers that allow you to open URLs.

Some depend on php.ini settings (allow_url, if I remember correctly). The safest way to do this sort of things is to use any number of HTTP classes (like snoopy) or cURL if you have that functionality compiled in.

[Adult4Web]

try to open URL like: $result_string = join('', file('http://google.com'));

[UberTec]

the easiest and as far as I know about the only way to do this using a function in PHP is

$string = file_get_contents("http://www.example.com/file.php");

[wigwam]

Thanks Flush. For some reason I had over-looked this function but in any case it's no good because the server my site is on is running PHP 4.1.2.

I can't find anyway to get 4.1.2 to do the job and fear you may be right that file_get_contents() is the only way to do this.

But because it seems a relatively simple task for PHP to perform, I can't help doubting that it took until version 4.3 to accomodate this.

Can someone with PHPv4.3+ check that this works:

PHP Code:

$url="https://select.worldpay.com/wcc/itransaction";
$urloutput=file_get_contents($url);
echo $urloutput; //should print "N,-1,Cart id must be provided" 


If so, I'll badger my host for a php upgrade.

Thanks again,
Paul

[BenSummers]

i believe you will need cURL if your going to be communicating with secure pages over https://

[Adult4Web]

Can someone with PHPv4.3+ check that this works:

PHP:
$url="https://select.worldpay.com/wcc/itransaction";
$urloutput=file_get_contents($url);
echo $urloutput; //should print "N,-1,Cart id must be provided"

I have PHP version 4.3.3 and your script return string:
N,-1,Could not derive installation ID

[wigwam]

Thanks Adult4Web. That means that function would work.

Anyhow, for my 4.1.2 version: I've taken the advice of fyrestrtr and BenSummers and used curl (which surprisingly my host had installed). This works:

PHP Code:

$url="https://select.worldpay.com/wcc/itransaction?etc";
$ch = curl_init();   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1); // return into a variable 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10); 
$result = curl_exec($ch); 
curl_close($ch); 


Thank you all. This is a pretty class forum...
Paul