What is the simplest way to download file in PHP

Question

I need to download an image from some URL to my server. However, my server's config disallowed me to do it this way:

getimagesize( $file );

Because, it generate error:

Warning: getimagesize() [function.getimagesize]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in somefile.php  on line 10

So, is there another way I can use that doesn't require external library?

Ok, I solved it with solution from OIS:

$filename = '/tmp/'.md5($file);
$ch = curl_init($file);
$fp = fopen($filename, "w");

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);

$ext = getimagesize( $filename );

Answer 1

You can try curl.

Answer 2

it is not possible unless you modify the server configuration

Answer 3

If file access to URLs is disabled on your server, you can't load any content from external URLs. That's the purpose of that configuration.

On a server where it's not disabled, file_get_contents($url) is the easiest way to fetch most files.

Answer 4

Use the following to download the file into $imgdata. You can then save it to a file and get its image size. You can probably remove the file saving step with a bit of work to make it faster.

$imgdata = get_file_contents($url);
file_put_contents($filename, $imgdata);
getimagesize( $filename );