file_get_contents does not work with MAMP

Question

I have created an index.php page in MAMP.

My index.php reads exactly like the following. I access it through localhost:8888.

<?php

echo file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com");

?>

However, instead of returning the html source code from this page as I believe it would do, it just returns http://stackoverflow.com as a regular webpage, like the webpage you are looking at now.

My MAMP is using PHP 5.5.10. The user_agent is set and allow_url_fopen is on.

I am severely confused. I would very much appreciate any explanations :)

Answer 1

If you want to see the plain text you can use the following,

<?php 
header('Content-Type:text/plain');
echo file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com");
?>

What you see in your version is correct, since the HTML is rendered by your internet browser.

Answer 2

It IS returning the html and the browser is interpreting it.

You can try wrap the output in tags:

<?php

echo '<code>' . file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com") . '</code>';

?>

Or set headers as text/plain instead of html:

<?php

header('Content-Type: text/plain');
echo file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com");

?>

Or if you want to keep the headers and not inject the output into code tags:

<?php

echo htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com"));

?>

I prefer the last one.

Answer 3

The results of a php script are by default sent to the bowser, so your code

<?php
   echo file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com");
?>

Is reading the web page and then sending it to your browser. So it looks like it is just showing the page you read.

If you change it to

<?php
    $page = file_get_contents("http://stackoverflow.com");
?>

Then you can do something with the web page source stored in $page.