Returning Streams from your own %PHP_FUNCTION()%s is easy too: PHP_FUNCTION(example_open) { php_stream *stream; if (ZEND_NUM_ARGS() != 0) { WRONG_PARAM_COUNT; } stream = php_stream_open_wrapper( "http://www.php.net", "rb", REPORT_ERRORS, NULL); php_stream_to_zval(stream, return_value); }