Writing phpinfo() To File

11th July 2008 - 2 minutes read time

The contents of phpinfo() are quite useful, and it is usually the first thing that many developers perform to make sure that PHP is installed. However, printing out the phpinfo() function can lead to a security risk because it displays a lot of information about the server.

Here is how to write the contents of the phpinfo() function to a file.

ob_start();
phpinfo();
$info = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
 
$fp = fopen("phpinfo.html", "w+");
fwrite($fp, $info);
fclose($fp);

This is an example of output buffering.

PHP

Comments

Thanks for the tip. It would be good to just have it save as Plain Text format rather than html as this would make diff/merge of different server settings much easier. Is there a way to strip the html ?

Submitted by Lem on Thu, 08/27/2015 - 02:25

Permalink
Well, you can generate it from the command line with php --infoThat doesn't have any HTML in it :)
Philip Norton

Submitted by giHlZp8M8D on Thu, 08/27/2015 - 11:48

Permalink

I know this is really old... but for us old timers that are just beginning this php journey, how/where do you run a script like this?

Thanks.

GOJ

 

Submitted by GoodOlJoe on Tue, 01/31/2023 - 04:24

Permalink

Hi GoodOlJoe, thanks for commenting.

You can run this script in two ways. 

1) On the command line.

Assuming you have PHP installed, create a file called something like phpinfo.php. Then, open up a terminal prompt, change directory to the same directory that the file is located, and run it like this.

php phpinfo.php

You will find that once it's run you'll have another file in the same directory called phpinfo.html.

2) Via a web server

This is slightly more tricky if you're new to PHP, but there are plenty of tutorials out there on installing PHP and a web server (Apache and Nginx are the main two).

Once you have it installed you need to put the script into the web directory in the form of a file called something like phpinfo.php. All you need to do then is visit the file through your web browser. This might have the following address

http://localhost/phpinfo.php

Both of these do depend on how you set things up though. In the world of docker containers there are numbers ways in which you can stand up a local web server and run both of these actions.

Good luck!

Philip Norton

Submitted by giHlZp8M8D on Tue, 01/31/2023 - 08:05

Permalink

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
3 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Related Content

Generating Colour Palettes From Images In PHP

4th August 2024

A common web design pattern is to incorporate an image into the design of the page. This creates a tighter integration with the image and the rest of the page.

The main issue in designing a page around the image is that the colours of the page must match the image. Otherwise this creates a dissonance between the image and the styles of the site.

Read more

Validating XML Files With XML Schema Definitions In PHP

21st July 2024

XML is a useful format for configuration, data storage, and transmitting data from one system to another. As a human readable format that can be easily read by machines it quickly gained favor in lots of different systems as a mechanism for data storage.

Read more

Approximating Pi Using A Circle And A Square

26th May 2024

Pi day was a few weeks ago, but I came across this simple approximation of pi recently and decided to put together an example in PHP since it seemed pretty simple.

This approximation of pi centers around a real world example, but we can simulate this using some code.

Read more

Drawing A Parabolic Curve With Straight Lines In PHP

12th May 2024

A parabolic curve is a type of curve where every point is an equal distance from a focal point. There a number of different way to generate this sort of curve using math, but one of the simplest is to use straight lines to create the illusion of the curve.

Read more

Recreating Spotify Wrapped In PHP

17th March 2024

I quite like the end of the year report from Spotify that they call "Wrapped". This is a little application in which they tell you what your favorite artist was and what sort of genres you listened to the most during the year.

Read more