Return variable from remote script

[knspaa]

I'm trying to include script from remote server, so that I could have return variable. Local it works, but with url not.

Won't work:
$foo=include "http://remote.com/value.php";
echo $foo;
#print nothing

Works:
$foo=include "value.php";
echo $foo;
#print 'this is a test'

##value.php###

return 'this is a test';

Or is there another way to call remote script and get variable back to main code?

[bpat1434]

When calling an include with a remote destination (like you are here) the other server (remote.com in this case) will parse the script and send you the results.

The only way to get the source of the file is to use the FTP protocol inside PHP to open an FTP connection to the remote host, transfer the file to a temp location on your server, read it, then remove it.

[evan_k]

It bears mentioning that executing a remote file is potentially a HUGE security issue. If you simply want to retrieve the value of a variable, you could have the remote script serialize and print said variable, then in the local script request the page and unserialize said variable:

<?php
#script located at http://mysite.com/myscript.php
$result = unserialize( file_get_contents('http://remotesite.com/theirscript.php') );
?>

<?php
#script located at http://remotesite.com/theirscript.php
echo serialize( $variable_we_want );
?>