External files without allow_url_fopen

[fairysdad]

Hello all...

Is it possible to open a file from an external website where allow_url_fopen is not set to true?

I am writing a script that downloads XML and another plain text file format and (and this is where the problem lies as I know I can use PHP to use XML without fopen) do stuff with the file before putting it out (some of the returned XML is invalid with some characters not corresponding with the encoding type - this is a problem that I've raised with the developers of the XML feed I'm accessing, but they seem reluctant to do anything about it...)

While when I've tested it, I can download the files fine, I do have allow_url_fopen set to true in my php.ini file. However, I expect that one group of the people who I'm coding this for (I'm doing this project for two different groups of people) don't, and probablywon't want to change it. Is it possible to download the text files from the external server and feed them into a file on my own server (which is what I'm currently doing)?

[NogDog]

The [man]cURL[/man] functions are usually a good option for this.

[bradgrafelman]

One thing you can do is use [man]cURL[/man] to download the file instead. However, the downside to this is that it requires the cURL library to be installed.

If you want a really robust solution, you can use [man]ini_get/man to test if allow_url_fopen is set to true and, if so, do the normal file_get_contents() or whatever it is you're doing.

If it isn't, use [man]extension_loaded/man to determine if cURL is available. If it is, use it instead.

If it isn't... well, you could attempt to use [man]fsockopen/man to open a socket to the remote webserver and imitate the HTTP protocol yourself, however I personally would simply abort execution of the script/app and display/log an error message for the developer informing him/her that they need one or the other. 😉

EDIT: So we're back to the double post sneak attack, eh Charles? I see how it is...