PHP file function

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file

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

Identical to file_get_contents(), except that
file() returns the file in an array. Each
element of the array corresponds to a line in the file, with the
newline still attached. Upon failure, file()
returns FALSE.

You can use the optional use_include_path parameter
and set it to “1″, if you want to search for the file in the include_path, too.

// Get a file into an array.  In this example we'll go through HTTP to get
// the HTML source of a URL.
$lines = file('http://www.example.com/');
 
// Loop through our array, show HTML source as HTML source; and line numbers too.
foreach ($lines as $line_num => $line) {
    echo "Line #<b>{$line_num}</b> : " . htmlspecialchars($line) . "<br />\n";
}
 
// Another example, let's get a web page into a string.  See also file_get_contents().
$html = implode('', file('http://www.example.com/'));

Tip: You can use a URL 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 Appendix N for a list of supported
URL protocols.

Note:
Each line in the resulting array will include the line ending, so you
still need to use rtrim() if you do not want the line
ending present.

Note: If you are having problems
with PHP not recognizing the line endings when reading files either on or
created by a Macintosh computer, you might want to enable the
auto_detect_line_endings
run-time configuration option.

Note:
As of PHP 4.3.0 you can use file_get_contents() to
return the contents of a file as a string.

In PHP 4.3.0 file() became binary safe.

Note: Context support was added
with PHP 5.0.0. For a description of contexts, refer to
Reference CLVIII, Stream Functions.

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 workaround this, you should lower your
error_reporting level not to 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 for you.
If you are using fsockopen() to create an ssl:// socket,
you are responsible for detecting and suppressing the warning yourself.

See also readfile(),
fopen(), fsockopen(),
popen(), file_get_contents(),
include(), and
stream_context_create()