Accessing HTTP(s) URLs

file://
ftp://
Supported Protocols and Wrappers
PHP Manual

# http://

# https://

http:// -- https:// — Accessing HTTP(s) URLs

### Description

Allows read-only access to files/resources via HTTP 1.0, using the HTTP GET method. A Host: header is sent with the request to handle name-based virtual hosts. If you have configured a user_agent string using your php.ini file or the stream context, it will also be included in the request.

The stream allows access to the body of the resource; the headers are stored in the $http_response_header variable.

If it's important to know the URL of the resource where your document came from (after all redirects have been processed), you'll need to process the series of response headers returned by the stream.

The from directive will be used for the From: header if set and not overwritten by the Context options and parameters.

### Usage

- http://example.com
- http://example.com/file.php?var1=val1&var2=val2
- http://user:password@example.com
- https://example.com
- https://example.com/file.php?var1=val1&var2=val2
- https://user:password@example.com

### Options

Wrapper Summary
Attribute | Supported
--- | ---
Restricted by allow_url_fopen | Yes
Allows Reading | Yes
Allows Writing | No
Allows Appending | No
Allows Simultaneous Reading and Writing | N/A
Supports stat() | No
Supports unlink() | No
Supports rename() | No
Supports mkdir() | No
Supports rmdir() | No

### Changelog

Version | Description
--- | ---
4.3.7 | Detect buggy IIS servers to avoid "SSL: Fatal Protocol Error" errors.
4.3.0 | Added https://.
4.0.5 | Added support for redirects.

### Examples

Example #1 Detecting which URL we ended up on after redirects

`<?php
$url = 'http://www.example.com/redirecting_page.php';
$fp = fopen($url, 'r');
$meta_data = stream_get_meta_data($fp);
foreach ($meta_data['wrapper_data'] as $response) {
/* Were we redirected? */
if (strtolower(substr($response, 0, 10)) == 'location: ') {
/* update $url with where we were redirected to */
$url = substr($response, 10);
}
}
?>`

### Notes

> Note: HTTPS is only supported when the openssl extension is enabled.

HTTP connections are read-only; writing data or copying files to an HTTP resource is not supported.

Sending POST and PUT requests, for example, can be done with the help of HTTP Contexts.

### See Also

- HTTP context options
- $http_response_header
- stream_get_meta_data() - Retrieves header/meta data from streams/file pointers

file://
ftp://
Supported Protocols and Wrappers
PHP Manual