Fetching webpages into a variable?

[db7654321]

How can I get a webpage from another server into a variable in a php script? ...Something very similar to include("http://foo.bla/thispage/index.html"), only instead of putting the contents of the page into the php script, put them in a variable. Basically, is there a function that acts like a web client? Thanks!

[yelvington]

This requires only one line of code and is well documented. Read the manual, especially "Chapter 20. Using remote files."

[db7654321]

smacks forehead How I missed that chapter, I have no clue. 🙂 I've got another question now.. How can I keep a local copy of the remote page, and if the local copy is x minutes old (when the script is viewed) download the remote copy again (I think I know how to do this part, maybe)? ...And some sort of a lock so if the script is executed while the remote page is loading, the script will wait to send the local copy after it's downloaded (I have no clue on how todo this)? Thanks for the amazingly quick response. 🙂

Steve Yelvington wrote:

This requires only one line of code and is well documented. Read the manual, especially "Chapter 20. Using remote files."

[yelvington]

Here's a quick function that takes an url, a filename for a cache file, and an agelimit in minutes (maximum cache time for the file). It returns the data as a string.

The Web server must have permission to write to the directory or file. If the file is missing, filectime() should return 0, so the function should still work.

I have not tested it but it's adapted from similar code that does work.

function getpage($url,$cachefile,$agelimit)
{
$agelimit *= 60; // conv minutes to seconds
$age = time() - filectime($cachefile);
if($age > $agelimit)
{
$mypage = implode('',file($url));
$fd = fopen($cachefile,"w");
fwrite($fd,$buf);
fclose($fd);
return $mypage;
}
else return implode('',file($cachefile));
}

[Anon]

That works great! I fixed a problem with fwrite($fd,$buf);. Changed $buf to $mypage. $buf must have been a variable in the script this came from. Thanks!

Steve Yelvington wrote:

Here's a quick function that takes an url, a filename for a cache file, and an agelimit in minutes (maximum cache time for the file). It returns the data as a string.

The Web server must have permission to write to the directory or file. If the file is missing, filectime() should return 0, so the function should still work.

I have not tested it but it's adapted from similar code that does work.

function getpage($url,$cachefile,$agelimit)
{
$agelimit *= 60; // conv minutes to seconds
$age = time() - filectime($cachefile);
if($age > $agelimit)
{
$mypage = implode('',file($url));
$fd = fopen($cachefile,"w");
fwrite($fd,$buf);
fclose($fd);
return $mypage;
}
else return implode('',file($cachefile));
}

[Anon]

This does not work exactly as planned. It puls the source code to the variable. Is there a way to capture what goes to standard ouptut into a variable.

Thanks