get remote file content

[ambeer]

there are some things on server which i can't change:
1. i can't add some extra things like CURL lib;
2. allow_url_fopen is disabled in php.ini, so i can't use nor fopen("remote_file", r), nor get_file_contents(remote_file)....
3. fsockopen can't connect to any server i thing it's disabled by php.ini config too

for example i can do this things in other environments, in asp.net i can do:

#
System.Net.WebClient c = new System.Net.WebClient();
c.BaseAddress = "http://remote-server/";
c.DownloadData("http://remote-server/file.txt");
#

in jsp:

#
URL url = new URL("http://remote-server/");
HttpURLConnection c = (HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection();
c.connect();
InputStream in = c.getInputStream();
String html = stringFromInputStream(in);
#

i can't believe that there is no such similar wayt in php.... but google didn't help me to find any solutions expect fopen, get_file_content or fsockopen....

[adamalton]

The cURL module lets you do all of that kind of stuff very easily. And fsockopen allows you to connect to other websites. I think that the problem lies with your webhost rather than with php.