Question

i have to download a file created from a php script.
i tried this:

fopen('www.example.com/download.php?key=value', 'rb');

but i stille get a “failed to open stream” error.
how can i do that? If I browse to the url i get the file without problems…

EDIT: sorry, i forgot a piece of the string 🙂

Answer 1

I see multiple issues with you request:

1. You need to specify the open mode. In your case only 'r' applies because you only want to read.
2. You need to specify the protocol. In your case “http”.
3. You need to have URL wrappers enabled. Do a phpinfo() and look if allow_url_fopen is set to On.
4. You probably wanted file_get_contents anyway.
5. You should enable error reporting and read the error messages. That will help you track the problem faster.
6. Don’t forget to fclose if you decide to use fopen.

Example:

$data = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/download.php?key=value');

You should also read about fopen in the Manual.