[RESOLVED] What is url wrappers?

[jwagner]

Hello to all you great beloved people out there,

I would like to know what PHP url wrappers are.

Yea, I have looked here: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php

but I guess I am too much of a noob to understand this idea.

So, will someone please explain this concept in laymen's terms?

Thanks so much guys.

Love n' peace.

[NogDog]

In general a "wrapper" is any function/script designed to provide simplified access to something, generally hiding that "something's" complexity. Among other wrappers, PHP provides a "url wrapper" that allows certain file functions to access a URL as though it were a file on the local file system. If that wrapper is present and enabled, then you can, for example, use file_get_contents() to access the output of a web page via a URL to that web page:

$html = file_get_contents('http://www.phpbuilder.com/');

[jwagner]

NogDog;10920805 wrote:

In general a "wrapper" is any function/script designed to provide simplified access to something, generally hiding that "something's" complexity. Among other wrappers, PHP provides a "url wrapper" that allows certain file functions to access a URL as though it were a file on the local file system. If that wrapper is present and enabled, then you can, for example, use file_get_contents() to access the output of a web page via a URL to that web page:

$html = file_get_contents('http://www.phpbuilder.com/');

Thanks so much NogDog. Has someone ever told you that you are of great value to this forum? Well, let me do that, in case no one else has... You are of great help, and of great wisdom and knowledge. (..and attitude!)

Thanks so much.

BTW, I see that there is actually a wrapper for "file system", which makes me wonder: why do we need a wrapper for the filesystem if we use file manipulation functions in the first place?

[bradgrafelman]

Because you can simply give fopen() the name/path of a file without having to do any extensive programming for interfacing with a hard drive, searching for the file, copying the file's contents into a memory buffer, etc., then you're still using a wrapper when you use PHP's file manipulation functions (granted, PHP probably lets the O/S handle some of this work, but still..).

If you're asking why there's a "file:///" wrapper, well, I can't personally answer that unless it's for compatibility/historical purposes (I know IE and the like used to reference local files with the "file:///" wrapper).

[nrg_alpha]

jwagner;10920807 wrote:

Thanks so much NogDog. Has someone ever told you that you are of great value to this forum? Well, let me do that, in case no one else has... You are of great help, and of great wisdom and knowledge. (..and attitude!)

I echo that!

[jwagner]

Thanks so much to all of you. I really appreciate all your help.