Question

I am aware that you can use Java to execute the php file from a website like below:

URLConnection conn = new URL("http://localhost/file.php").openConnection();
conn.connect();

However would it be possible to make Java read the php file as a text file and how? (Possibly via the use of the BufferedReader)

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you mean to read the php source, then the answer is no – you cannot read php source in a typical webserver configuration. In most cases it would be very insecure to allow it – passwords and other constants are often stored in php source code.

If however, you are just meaning to read out the result of executing the php document, as a browser would do, you can use something like;

URL u = new URL("http://www.example.com/my/php/doc.php");
URLConnection c = u.openConnection();
InputStream r = c.getInputStream();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(r));
for(String line; (line = reader.readLine()) != null;) System.out.println(line);

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To read the source of a remote php document via http, the webserver needs to be configured to not parse & execute the file, rather just serve it blindly as a plain text file.

This can be achieved in a few ways;

1. Uninstall php – no php engine, no code execution.
2. Change the file extension – apache actually just identifies files by their file extension, so changing it to .phpsource would do the trick in many instances.
3. Alter the apache configuration – either globally, or via .htaccess you can alter webserver configurations for a single directory. You would want to do something like php_flag engine off or RemoveHandler .php

Note that only the first, and maybe the second, method above does not open up potential security holes in your server. So use with caution.