Examples

<?php
/* Read local file from /home/bar */
$localfile = file_get_contents("/home/bar/foo.txt");

/* Identical to above, explicitly naming FILE scheme */
$localfile = file_get_contents("file:///home/bar/foo.txt");

/* Read remote file from www.example.com using HTTP */
$httpfile  = file_get_contents("http://www.example.com/foo.txt");

/* Read remote file from www.example.com using HTTPS */
$httpsfile = file_get_contents("https://www.example.com/foo.txt");

/* Read remote file from ftp.example.com using FTP */
$ftpfile   = file_get_contents("ftp://user:pass@ftp.example.com/foo.txt");

/* Read remote file from ftp.example.com using FTPS */
$ftpsfile  = file_get_contents("ftps://user:pass@ftp.example.com/foo.txt");
?>

<?php
/* Send POST request to https://secure.example.com/form_action.php
* Include form elements named "foo" and "bar" with dummy values
*/

$sock = fsockopen("ssl://secure.example.com", 443, $errno, $errstr, 30);
if (!$sock) die("$errstr ($errno)\n");

$data = "foo=" . urlencode("Value for Foo") . "&bar=" . urlencode("Value for Bar");

fwrite($sock, "POST /form_action.php HTTP/1.0\r\n");
fwrite($sock, "Host: secure.example.com\r\n");
fwrite($sock, "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n");
fwrite($sock, "Content-length: " . strlen($data) . "\r\n");
fwrite($sock, "Accept: */*\r\n");
fwrite($sock, "\r\n");
fwrite($sock, $data);

$headers = "";
while ($str = trim(fgets($sock, 4096)))
$headers .= "$str\n";

echo "\n";

$body = "";
while (!feof($sock))
$body .= fgets($sock, 4096);

fclose($sock);
?>

<?php
/* Create a compressed file containing an arbitrary string
* File can be read back using compress.zlib stream or just
* decompressed from the command line using 'gzip -d foo-bar.txt.gz'
*/
$fp = fopen("compress.zlib://foo-bar.txt.gz", "wb");
if (!$fp) die("Unable to create file.");

fwrite($fp, "This is a test.\n");

fclose($fp);
?>