# fread

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

fread — Binary-safe file read

### Description

string fread ( resource `$handle` , int `$length` )

fread() reads up to `length` bytes from the file pointer referenced by `handle` . Reading stops when up to `length` bytes have been read, EOF (end of file) is reached, (for network streams) when a packet becomes available, or (after opening userspace stream) when 8192 bytes have been read whichever comes first.

### Parameters

`handle`

  A file system pointer resource that is typically created using fopen().

`length`

  Up to `length` number of bytes read.

### Return Values

Returns the read string or `FALSE` in case of error.

### Examples

Example#1 A simple fread() example

`<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
$handle = fopen($filename, "r");
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
fclose($handle);
?>`

Example#2 Binary fread() example

Warning

On systems which differentiate between binary and text files (i.e. Windows) the file must be opened with 'b' included in fopen() mode parameter.

`<?php
$filename = "c:\\files\\somepic.gif";
$handle = fopen($filename, "rb");
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
fclose($handle);
?>`

Example#3 Remote fread() examples

Warning

When reading from anything that is not a regular local file, such as streams returned when reading remote files or from popen() and fsockopen(), reading will stop after a packet is available. This means that you should collect the data together in chunks as shown in the examples below.

`<?php
// For PHP 5 and up
$handle = fopen("http://www.example.com/", "rb");
$contents = stream_get_contents($handle);
fclose($handle);
?>`
`<?php
$handle = fopen("http://www.example.com/", "rb");
$contents = '';
while (!feof($handle)) {
$contents .= fread($handle, 8192);
}
fclose($handle);
?>`

### Notes

> Note: If you just want to get the contents of a file into a string, use file_get_contents() as it has much better performance than the code above.

### See Also

- fwrite()
- fopen()
- fsockopen()
- popen()
- fgets()
- fgetss()
- fscanf()
- file()
- fpassthru()