PHP: How do I read a .txt file from FTP server into a variable?

Question

I have two servers. I already have a .txt file in the one I'm connecting to.

I need to get the .txt file contents and put them into a $ variable. Here is my code that doesn't work:

$ftp_server = $_POST["site"];
$path = $_POST["path"];
$ftp_user_name = $_POST["username"];
$ftp_user_pass = $_POST["pass"];

// set up basic connection
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);

// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user_name, $ftp_user_pass);

$remote_filename =
    "/" . $_POST["path"] . "/" . "#" . $result["id"]
    . " - " .    $result["LastName"] . ", " . $result["FirstName"]
    . "/" . $_POST["title"] . ".txt";
ftp_get($conn_id, $content, $remote_filename, FTP_ASCII);

This code connects to the FTP and I used the ftp_get to copy from one text file to a variable called $content. I know a variable doesn't belong in this parameter, but I'm sold right now. I have no idea how to read this .txt file.

Is there a way to do this with the PHP FTP functions?

Now, when I try this:

$fileContents = file_get_contents('ftp://username:pa‌​ssword@hostname/path/to/file');

It gives an error:

Warning: fopen(ftp://[email protected]/101Notebook Backup: 22-08-2013/#11 - Cappucci, Ryan/queen.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: FTP server reports 550 /101Notebook Backup: 22-08-2013/: not a regular file in /home/content/34/11614434/html/adminpdo.php on line 269

Why am I getting this error?

Thanks again

Answer 1

The file_get_contents is the easiest solution:

$contents = file_get_contents('ftp://username:pa‌​ssword@hostname/path/to/file');

If it does not work, it's probably because you do not have URL wrappers enabled in PHP.

---

If you need greater control over the reading (transfer mode, passive mode, offset, reading limit, etc), use the ftp_fget with a handle to the php://temp (or the php://memory) stream:

$conn_id = ftp_connect('hostname');

ftp_login($conn_id, 'username', 'password');

ftp_pasv($conn_id, true);

$h = fopen('php://temp', 'r+');

ftp_fget($conn_id, $h, '/path/to/file', FTP_BINARY, 0);

$fstats = fstat($h);
fseek($h, 0);
$contents = fread($h, $fstats['size']); 

fclose($h);
ftp_close($conn_id);

(add error handling)