... array file ( string filename [, int use_include_path]) . ... You can use the optional second parameter and set it to "1", if you want to search for the file in the include_path , too. <?php // get a web page into an array and print it out $fcontents = file ('http://www.php.net/'); while (list ($line_num, $line) = each ($fcontents)) { echo "<b>Line $line_num:</b>; ", htmlspecialchars ($line), "<br>\n"; } // get a web page into a string $fcontents = join ('', file ('http://www.php.net/')); ?> ...