file_get_contents not working for local files

Question

I recently upgraded my XAMPP from PHP 5.2 to 5.3.1

I seem to be having a problem with file_get_contents().

I can use the function to get something like "http://www.google.com", but it times out when I use it on a domain I have setup locally e.g. "http://localhost/my_dir/my_css_file.css".

I'm not really sure what the problem is. If it's a bug, is there a viable alternative?

Kindly advise.

Answer 1

Any chance you're on a Windows system? There is a bug in a combination of Windows, file_get_contents and localhost which is not going to be fixed. See http://bugs.php.net/38826 and http://bugs.php.net/40881

Try using 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost or set up any different domain name. Then you should get it working.

Answer 2

Try to use include() instead of file_get_contents().

<?php include($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . "/my_dir/my_css_file.css"); ?>

or

<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/my_dir/my_css_file.css"); ?>

---

Updates corresponding your comments:

$string = get_include_contents('somefile.php');

function get_include_contents($filename) {
    if (is_file($filename)) {
        ob_start();
        include $filename;
        $contents = ob_get_contents();
        ob_end_clean();
        return $contents;
    }
    return false;
}

This will get file data into variable $string.