file

(PHP 3, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0)

file -- Reads entire file into an array

Description

array file ( string filename [, int use_include_path])

Identical to readfile(), except that file() returns the file in an array. Each element of the array corresponds to a line in the file, with the newline still attached.

Note: Each line in the resulting array will include the line ending, so you still need to use trim() if you do not want the line ending present.

You can use the optional second parameter and set it to "1", if you want to search for the file in the include_path, too.

<?php
// get a web page into an array and print it out
$fcontents = file ('http://www.example.com/');
while (list ($line_num, $line) = each ($fcontents)) {
    echo "<b>Line $line_num:</b>; ", htmlspecialchars ($line), "<br>\n";
}

// get a web page into a string
$fcontents = implode ('', file ('http://www.example.com/'));
?>

Note: As of PHP 4.3.0 you can use file_get_contents() to return the contents of a file as a string in a binary safe manner.

Warning

This function is not (yet) binary safe!

Tip: You can use a URL as a filename with this function if the "fopen wrappers" have been enabled. See fopen() for more details.

See also readfile(), fopen(), fsockopen(), and popen().