The following is a list of the various URL style protocols that
PHP has built-in for use with the filesystem functions such as
fopen() and copy().
In addition to these wrappers, as of PHP 4.3, you can write
your own wrappers using PHP script and
stream_register_wrapper().
HTTP and HTTPS
PHP 3, PHP 4. https:// since PHP 4.3
Allows read-only access to files/resources via HTTP 1.0,
using the HTTP GET method. A Host: header is sent with the request
to handle name-based virtual hosts. If you have configured
a user_agent string using
your ini file or the stream context, it will also be included
in the request.
Redirects have been supported since PHP 4.0.5; if you are using
an earlier version you will need to include trailing slashes in
your URLs.
The stream allows access to the body of
the resource; the headers are stored in the
$http_response_header variable.
Since PHP 4.3, the headers are available using
stream_get_meta_data().
HTTP connections are read-only; you cannot write data or copy
files to an HTTP resource.
Note: HTTPS is supported starting from PHP 4.3, if you
have compiled in support for OpenSSL.
