PHP: How to Read a .Txt File from Ftp Server into a Variable

Read contents of every file in FTP directory using one connection

To avoid having to connect/login for every file, use the ftp_get and reuse your connection ID ($conn_id):

foreach ($files as $file)
{
    // Full path to a remote file
    $remote_path = "DirectoryName/$file";
    // Path to a temporary local copy of the remote file
    $temp_path = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), "ftp");
    // Temporarily download the file
    ftp_get($conn_id, $temp_path, $remote_path, FTP_BINARY);
    // Read the contents of temporary copy
    $contents = file_get_contents($temp_path);
    $content[$file] = $contents;
    // Discard the temporary copy
    unlink($temp_path);
}

(You should add some error checking.)

Read or download 5kb of a file from FTP server in PHP or Python instead of downloading or reading whole file

If you want to read only part of the file, then just remove your while loop and call fgets only once.

$buffer = fgets($handle, 4096);

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Though if the file is binary or if you want to read a fixes amount of bytes, you better use fread.

$buffer = fread($handle, 4096);

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Though your server is not compatible with PHP URL wrappers, see:

Getting "FTP server reports 550 Could not get file size." when using FTP URL in fopen

And PHP does not offer any other robust alternative for your needs.

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Though it is doable in Python with ftplib:

ftp = FTP()
ftp.connect(host, user, passwd)

size = 4096

cmd = "RETR {}".format(filename)
f = BytesIO()
aborted = False

def gotdata(data):
    f.write(data)
    while (not aborted) and (f.tell() >= size):
        ftp.abort()
        aborted = True

try:
    ftp.retrbinary(cmd, gotdata)
except:
    # An exception when transfer is aborted is expected
    if not aborted:
        raise

f.seek(0)

The code is based on my answer to:

Get files names inside a zip file on FTP server without downloading whole archive

List and download clicked file from FTP

Your link in the generated <a> tag points back to the web server, which does not contain the linked file.

What you need to do is to link to a PHP script, giving it a name of the file to download. The script will then download the file from an FTP server and pass the downloaded file back to the user (to the webbrowser).

echo "<a href=\"download.php?file=".urlencode($file)."\">".htmlspecialchars($file)."</a>";

A very trivial version of the download.php script:

<?

header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');

echo file_get_contents('ftp://username:password@ftp.example.com/path/' . $_GET["file"]);

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The download.php script uses FTP URL wrappers. If that's not allowed on your web server, you have to go the harder way with FTP functions. See
PHP: How do I read a file from FTP server into a variable?

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Though for a really correct solution, you should provide some HTTP headers related to the file, like Content-Length, Content-Type and Content-Disposition.

Also the above trivial example will first download whole file from the FTP server to the webserver. And only then it will start streaming it to the user (webbrowser). What is a waste of time and also of a memory on the webserver.

For a better solution, see Download file via PHP script from FTP server to browser with Content-Length header without storing the file on the web server.

You may also want to autodetect Content-Type, unless all your files are of the same type.

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A related question about implementing an FTP upload with a webpage:

Displaying recently uploaded images from remote FTP server in PHP

How to stream a file I get from an FTP without storing it locally?

Your problem consists of two parts:

1. Reading FTP file as a stream (see an example with fread(): "PHP: How do I read a .txt file from FTP server into a variable?")

2. Streaming a Response in Symfony2

Transfer files between two remote FTP servers in PHP

Both ftp_get and ftp_put can operate with files only, not folders.

Use ftp_get to download a file from the first server to a local temporary folder/file. And then use ftp_put to upload the temporary file to the second server.

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If you want to avoid using a temporary file, you can download the file to memory using ftp_fget and re-upload to the second server using ftp_fput.

• PHP: How do I read a .txt file from FTP server into a variable?
• Transfer in-memory data to FTP server without using intermediate file

FTP Files are not accessible using fopen or file_exists or file_get_contents

Ok, This solved my error.

$filename = "ftp://username:pa‌​ssword@hostname/path/to/file";

Thanks.

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