php - Copy Image from Remote Server Over HTTP

Question

I am looking for a simple way to import/copy images from remote server to a local folder using PHP. I have no FTP access to the server, but all remote images can be accessed via HTTP (i.e. http://www.mydomain.com/myimage.jpg).

Example use: A user wishes to add an image to his profile. The image already exists on the web and the user provides with a direct URL. I do not wish to hotlink the image but to import and serve from my domain.

Answer 1

If you have PHP5 and the HTTP stream wrapper enabled on your server, it's incredibly simple to copy it to a local file:

copy('http://somedomain.com/file.jpeg', '/tmp/file.jpeg');

This will take care of any pipelining etc. that's needed. If you need to provide some HTTP parameters there is a third 'stream context' parameter you can provide.