problem reading a webpage into a string

f_fischer

Hello,

I have a problem with PHP4 and would really appreciate it if you could help me.

The problem occurs when I try to read a webpage into a string or a variable, e.g. using join().

It only occurs with the pages I want to have as a string, which are some pages from amazon.com.

I used a command like this:

$fcontents = join ('', file ('http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861003730/'));

but it only returns "No such file or directory".

when I use www.yahoo.com as the URL instead of amazon, it works.

Can you help me?

Thank you very much in advance!

With best regards,
Frank

shanx24

Hi Frank,

The following works for me!

<?php
$fcontents = implode (' ', file('http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861003730/'));
echo $fcontents;
?>

Wonder what your problem is? Do you get any error message that you would like to share with us?

Cheers

f_fischer

Hi,

thank you for your answer!

Unfortunately, it does not work for me either.

I get the following error message:

Warning: file("http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861003730/") - No such file or directory in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 16

Warning: Bad arguments to implode() in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 16

Best wishes
Frank

shanx24

HI frank,

Dont know what your purspose is..is it to print an Amazon.com page? In that case, you could also take a look at the fpassthru function...

However, the "wrong no. of arguments implode()" is worrying. I wonder why you get that error..

Whats your PHP version and OS? (I am not sure if this info will help, but just in case. 🙂) Actually the code sample I sent works for me on Win98, Win2K as well as Linux.

THe Amazon.com URL that you wish to see..can you see it throuhg your browser? EXACTLY the same URL?

Shanx

f_fischer

Hi Shanx,

thanks for your reply.

What I'd like to achieve with my script is the following:

I have friends who are writers, and they usually log on to amazon to see how their books rank.
So I thought "Well, one could do that more easily with PHP" - have a script which reads the amazon page for that book into a string, searches to the "ranking" part, reads the rank (number) and writes the date and time and the rank into a local file. Repeat this script a few times a day, and you get a very good overview of how the books rank - and could even load the file into Excel to have a nice chart of the rankings.

So now I am standing here - but I cannot read the file into the string.

Loading the URL into the browser works - the same URL (I used copy and paste to be sure).

Amazon, however, adds a session ID to the URL. could this be the source of the problem?

PHP Version is 4.0.4pl1, build Feb.1 2001, on Linux infong 2.2.19 #1 SMP Fri Jan 19 20:46:53 MET 2001 i686 unleashed.
(it is installed on my webspace provider's server).

Best wishes
Frank

shanx24

I wonder if the following alternative would work:

------------- CODE ---------------

<?php

// Initialize the URL
$url = "http://www.yahoo.com";

// Open the URL and grab contents
$file = fopen ($url, "r");
$contents = fread ($file, 1000000); // Read around 1 MB
fclose($file);

// The contents should now not be empty, or
// just leave the file pointer open
if (!empty($contents))
{
// Format the data here, for instance, add table tags
// or parse out the stuff that you wish etc.
echo $contents;
}

else
{
return "The link <b>$url</b> is valid, but returned no data!";
}

--------------- END CODE ----------

shanx24

I wonder if the following alternative would work:

<pre>

<?php

// Initialize the URL
$url = "http://www.yahoo.com";

// Open the URL and grab contents
$file = fopen ($url, "r");
$contents = fread ($file, 1000000); // Read around 1 MB
fclose($file);

// The contents should now not be empty, or
// just leave the file pointer open
if (!empty($contents))
{
// Format the data here, for instance, add table tags
// or parse out the stuff that you wish etc.
echo $contents;
}
else
{
return "The link $url is valid, but returned no data!";
}

</pre>

f_fischer

Thanks for your help!

It works with most URLs - but not with those of amazon.com ...

When using an Amazon.com-URL PHP gives me the following error messages:

Warning: fopen("http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861003730/","r") - Success in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 20

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 21

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 22

Best wishes
Frank

shanx24

Sigh...pls take a look at the following:
http://shanx.com/php/readurl_source.htm

There is a sample of code that is working for me, including a sample output. Hope I helped! I am using Win2K, PHP 4.0.4p11..

What about you?

In any case, I guess the functions that you are using should work on pretty much any platform!

f_fischer

Hi Shanx,

wow, thanks very much!!!

I immediately tried it on the webserver where I rented some webspace, but there it won't work. This is all very strange - could it be that the provider installed PHP in a wrong way?

The following errors were given:

Warning: fopen("http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861003730/","r") - Success in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 8

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 9

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid File-Handle resource in /homepages/40/d12017188/htdocs/test.php4 on line 10

And no other data was displayed...

What could be the reason?

Thanks again,
Frank

f_fischer

Hi Shanx,

I tried another way - I renamed the file from .php or .php4 to .php3, so it specifically uses PHP3 - this works!

Great, it works like a charm!

Thanks again,
Frank

PS: I wonder why it would not work with PHP4?

The current PHP3 version is 3.0.16. PHP4 was 4.0.4pl1 - both run on Linux.

Maybe my webspace provider mixed something up with his PHP3 and 4 installations?

Anon

I do think this has not been a problem of PHP4 as such, but amazon somehow blocking content-grabbing through PHP.

I don't know how PHP intentifies itself when requesting a webpage but I think some large sites block certain user-agents because all of the code examples above work with almost any site on the net.