Why is Including Remote PHP Files a Bad Idea?

Embedding Remote PHP Files: Security Concerns and Alternatives

Including PHP files from remote servers is generally discouraged for security reasons. By default, web servers disable this feature in their PHP configuration (php.ini) to prevent malicious activities.

If you attempt to include a remote PHP file, such as "http://www.sample.com/includeThis.php", in your local script at "http://www.mysite.com/main.php", you will likely encounter an error. The include statement will fail because the PHP directive allow_url_include is set to Off by default.

Enabling allow_url_include is strongly discouraged as it opens up potential security vulnerabilities. Instead, consider using file_get_contents() to retrieve HTML markup from a remote script. Keep in mind that the returned data will be in its raw form, without any processed server-side code. To bypass this limitation, have the remote script output precomputed data (e.g., using json_encode() for JSON data) that can be incorporated into your local PHP script.

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