Opening up an URL and reading data from it is simple using the Streams API: php_stream *stream; stream = php_stream_open_wrapper("http://www.php.net", "rb", REPORT_ERRORS, NULL); if (stream == NULL) { return; } while (!php_stream_eof(stream)) { char buf[1024]; if (php_stream_gets(stream, buf, sizeof(buf)) { php_printf("%s", buf); } else { break; } } php_stream_close(stream);