How can I display php source code

Question

I am trying to do system("cat variables.php"); from a php script but it doesn't write anything :( Anybody knows whats the problem?

Answer 1

If you want to display the entire file to users, try:

highlight_file("path/to/file");

http://us3.php.net/highlight_file

Answer 2

You can use file_get_contents to get the content of a file.

And you can use __FILE__ to get the path to the current file -- if you want the current file, of course

So, to display the content of the current file :

echo file_get_contents(__FILE__);

Note 1 : you might have to do some escaping :

echo '<pre>' . htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents(__FILE__)) . '</pre>';

Note 2 : you can do that with any file, of course -- just make sure the path to the file is correct :

echo '<pre>' . htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents('/path/to/my/file.php')) . '</pre>';

And if you want more than just display the content -- if you want syntax-highlighting -- you could use the highlight_file function ; or something like GeSHi, which is more rich and more configurable.

Answer 3

Its not clear what you are trying to achieve, but if you are trying to step through your PHP code use:

• http://xdebug.org/
• http://www.firephp.org/

These tools will allow you to view your variables at different points in time.

Answer 4

If you're trying to display the contents of the file in its entirety some servers are configured to display the source of PHP files with a file extensions of phps. It will also syntax highlight the file's contents when displaying it.