Is there a JavaScript way to do file_get_contents()?

Question

Here is the PHP documentation

Here is how I would use it in an Ajax call, if I don't find a pure client way to do this.

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

Is there way to do this client side instead so I don't have to ajax the string over?

Answer 1

you could do

JS code:

$.post('phppage.php', { url: url }, function(data) {
    document.getElementById('somediv').innerHTML = data;        
});

PHP code:

$url = $_POST['url'];
echo file_get_contents($url);

That would get you the contents of the url.

Answer 2

JavaScript cannot go out and scrape data off of pages. It can make a call to a local PHP script that then goes on its behalf and grabs the data, but JavaScript (in the browser) cannot do this.

$.post("/localScript.php", { srcToGet: 'http://example.com' }, function(data){
  /* From within here, data is whatever your local script sent back to us */
});

You have options like JSONP and Cross-Origin Resource Sharing at your disposal, but both of those require setting up the other end, so you cannot just choose a domain and start firing off requests for data.

Further Reading: Same origin policy