What is "file-get-contents"

This function is similar to file(), except that file_get_contents() returns the file in a string, starting from offset to maxlen bytes. In case of failure, file_get_contents() will return FALSE.

file_get_contents() is the preferred method to read the contents of a file in a string. It uses memory mapping techniques supported by your OS to improve performance.

Note: If you are opening a URI with special characters, such as spaces, you need to encode the URI with urlencode().