Building a Versatile Remote File Connector

Abstract

One of PHP’s great strengths is its ability to access files on other servers, process them, and incorporate the results into your own output. For example, my web site (http:// foundationphp.com/) automatically runs a PHP script once an hour to send a request to Amazon.com to find the details of the current bestselling books on PHP and Dreamweaver. The results are stored in my database and then displayed on selected pages of my site. A similar technique can be used to display the contents of a news feed from another site. In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to handle an incoming news feed, but before you can do so, you need to retrieve the remote file.