Can PHP read in source code from another webpage external of the server to which the PHP code is run on?

[abrahamthomas]

I need to be more specific, all I want to do is read in HTML source code from another page using PHP

[Bazza]

Only if the source code comes over the web page. Most PHP code is executed on the server, and you don't see it unless there is an error. This hides the source code, and should work the exact same way for your PHP code so that somebody can't go and steal it. If this was a file share, or the server was not executing the source code, you could read it, but you might have to save it before you execute it.

[Bazza]

Not sure what you are are asking so...

1. you want to read the HTML of another website using a php page on your server?

1a. Yes, you can read the HTML of any page from another server. This sounds similar to a crawler or spider.

possible helpful site:

Building a Simple Search Engine with PHP
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2002/10/24/simplesearchengine.html

2. You want to view the HTML source generated by a PHP page?

2a. Yes, just view source from any web site and you can see the HTML code, it won't matter if the page uses Php. However, You won't be able to see the original php.

[AAAllen]

is your server running linux?

if so you can use

<?php exec ( lynx --dump $PAGE_URL ) ?>
or
<?php exec ( links--dump $PAGE_URL ) ?>

depending on the server

[Ong]

Okay, if all you want to do is get the HTML source code from a web page, then you could probably open the file using fopen(). But unless you have the correct permissions, all you can do is read the file.

On the note specified by somebody else, you cannot read PHP source code because, when a call is made to request a PHP web page, the server processes the file, and THEN outputs it to the browser.

[wooncherk]

U can open other pages as files:

$f = fopen ("http://www.site/page.htm", r);