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Bug #42661 file_get_contents() reads binary data incorrectly
Submitted: 2007-09-13 16:15 UTC Modified: 2007-09-27 01:00 UTC
Votes:8
Avg. Score:4.4 ± 0.7
Reproduced:8 of 8 (100.0%)
Same Version:1 (12.5%)
Same OS:1 (12.5%)
From: christian at vaneeden dot ca Assigned:
Status: No Feedback Package: Streams related
PHP Version: 5.2.4 OS: Redhat AS 4
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
 [2007-09-13 16:15 UTC] christian at vaneeden dot ca 
Description:
------------
When you read in a binary file with file_get_contents() and try to output it, it comes out garbled.
Note: as a workaround use readfile()

Reproduce code:
---------------
$docFile = file_get_contents( 'word.doc' );
header('Content-type: application/msword; charset: UTF-8');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="word.doc'"');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
print $docFile;

Expected result:
----------------
A proper word document.

Actual result:
--------------
Garbled binary text.

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 [2007-09-19 10:30 UTC] jani@php.net 
Just a note: using file_get_contents() in this is not very useful, readfile() is much better anyway. 

Try this little script to see that it's is actually file_get_contents() that is buggy:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
$docFile = file_get_contents( 'word.doc' );
echo strlen($docFile), "\n";
echo file_put_contents( 'copy_word.doc', $docFile ), "\n";
?>

Then run this on the result:

# diff -a word.doc copy_word.doc

They should not differ..
 [2007-09-27 01:00 UTC] php-bugs at lists dot php dot net 
No feedback was provided for this bug for over a week, so it is
being suspended automatically. If you are able to provide the
information that was originally requested, please do so and change
the status of the bug back to "Open".
 [2009-11-02 01:22 UTC] alex94040 at yahoo dot com 
I'm experiencing the same issue on PHP 5.2.9 on Apache + Windows 7. readfile() as a workaround doesn't work for me - same garbled text.
 [2012-07-02 17:18 UTC] phare2013 at gmail dot com 
"readfile()" worked for me once,after that it also returned garbled binary.
 
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