file_get_contents()

file_get_contents() — Reads entire file into a string.

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

What it does

This function is similar to file(), except that file_get_contents() returns the file in a string, starting at the specified offset up to length bytes. On failure, file_get_contents() will return false.

Signature

file_get_contents(string $filename, bool $use_include_path = false, ?resource $context = null, int $offset = 0, ?int $length = null): string|false

Parameters

Parameter	Type	What it takes
$filename	string	Name of the file to read.
$use_include_path	bool	The FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH constant can be used to trigger include path search. This is not possible if strict typing is enabled, since FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH is an int. Use true instead.
$context	?resource	A valid context resource created with stream_context_create(). If you don't need to use a custom context, you can skip this parameter by null.
$offset	int	The offset where the reading starts on the original stream. Negative offsets count from the end of the stream.
$length	?int	Maximum length of data read. The default is to read until end of file is reached. Note that this parameter is applied to the stream processed by the filters.

Return value

The function returns the read data or false on failure. This function may return Boolean false, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to false. Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

Example

A runnable snippet:

$homepage = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/'); echo $homepage;

Changelog

Version	Change
8.0.0	length is nullable now.
7.1.0	Support for negative offsets has been added.