How they work and what the concept of streams in PHP is

Question

I would like to know how it works and what the concept of streams is. I’ve used streams to get input, I also know there are others to control output. However, I would like to know the theory and where the idea comes from in PHP.

OBS: I would like to know the idea of streams in general and not only in relation to input and output through the protocol php://.

From now on, thank you.

Answer 1

This is not about PHP, input and output are basic use in any computer program, in PHP there are protocols to facilitate:

• php://stdin
• php://stdout

and can be used with fopen, file_get_contents (read), file_put_contents (write) among other read functions (such as copy).

Now for HTTP, ie WEB pages, you should use:

• php://input
• php://output

That can be used with fopen, file_get_contents (read), file_put_contents (record).

PHP can work with web as it can work on terminals (like a common program), so when using php://input in WEB you will get the payload of requests like POST and PUT, if you sent this via HTTP request:

POST /foo/bar.php HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

foobar=boobaz&toofoo=ever

The file_get_contents('php://input') would return:

"foobar=boobaz&toofoo=ever"