<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >readfile</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PHP Manual" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Filesystem functions" HREF="ref.filesystem.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="popen" HREF="function.popen.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="readlink" HREF="function.readlink.html"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="refentry" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >PHP Manual</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.popen.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.readlink.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><H1 ><A NAME="function.readfile" ></A >readfile</H1 ><DIV CLASS="refnamediv" ><A NAME="AEN26814" ></A ><P > (PHP 3, PHP 4 )</P >readfile -- Outputs a file</DIV ><DIV CLASS="refsect1" ><A NAME="AEN26817" ></A ><H2 >Description</H2 >int <B CLASS="methodname" >readfile</B > ( string filename [, int use_include_path])<BR ></BR ><P > Reads a file and writes it to the output buffer. </P ><P > Returns the number of bytes read from the file. If an error occurs, <TT CLASS="constant" ><B >FALSE</B ></TT > is returned and unless the function was called as @readfile, an error message is printed. </P ><DIV CLASS="tip" ><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="tip" ><P ><B >Tip: </B >You can use a URL as a filename with this function if the <A HREF="ref.filesystem.html#ini.allow-url-fopen" >fopen wrappers</A > have been enabled. See <A HREF="function.fopen.html" ><B CLASS="function" >fopen()</B ></A > for more details on how to specify the filename and <A HREF="wrappers.html" >Appendix I</A > for a list of supported URL protocols.</P ></BLOCKQUOTE ></DIV ><P > You can use the optional second parameter and set it to "1", if you want to search for the file in the <A HREF="configuration.directives.html#ini.include-path" >include_path</A >, too. </P ><P > See also <A HREF="function.fpassthru.html" ><B CLASS="function" >fpassthru()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.file.html" ><B CLASS="function" >file()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.fopen.html" ><B CLASS="function" >fopen()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.include.html" ><B CLASS="function" >include()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.require.html" ><B CLASS="function" >require()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.virtual.html" ><B CLASS="function" >virtual()</B ></A > and <A HREF="wrappers.html" >Appendix I</A >. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.popen.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.readlink.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >popen</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ref.filesystem.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >readlink</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >