note 82946 added to ref.curl

Although it has been noted that cURL outperforms both file_get_contents and fopen when it comes to getting a file over a HTTP link, the disadvantage of cURL is that it has no way of only reading a part of a page at a time. For example, the following code is likely to generate a memory limit error: <?php $ch = curl_init("http://www.example.com/reallybigfile.tar.gz"); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, true); $output = curl_exec($ch); $fh = fopen("out.tar.gz", 'w'); fwrite($fh, $output); fclose($fh); ?> While this, on the other hand, wouldn't <?php $hostfile = fopen("http://www.example.com/reallybigfile.tar.gz", 'r'); $fh = fopen("out.tar.gz", 'w'); while (!feof($hostfile)) { $output = fread($hostfile, 8192); fwrite($fh, $output); } fclose($hostfile); fclose($fh); ?> ---- Server IP: 208.69.120.35 Probable Submitter: 99.226.244.18 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.curl.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/82946 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/82946 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/82946 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php