Using PHP as a proxy to load data from an external domain

If you wish to retrieve data from a trusted external source that does not have a valid cross-domain policy file installed, then you can use a local PHP file as a proxy to download the file for you.

This method has the disadvantage that the overhead of retrieving the file is moved to the server rather than the client as in the previous YUI method. However, it may need to be used as a last resort when it is not feasible to install a cross-domain policy file on the remote domain.

How to do it...

1. 1. This example uses one PHP file, get_external_data.php:

   <?php
   require_once('../config.php');
   require_once('../lib/filelib.php');
   $uri = 'http://remote.example.com/text.txt';
   echo download_file_content($uri);
   ?>
   

2. 2. First, we set up the basic Moodle environment by including the global config.php file.

3. 3. Next, we include Moodle's file API library which provides the function download_file_content.

4. 4. We now define the URI of the file we wish...