Is there a JavaScript way to do file_get_contents()?
Here is the PHP documentation
Here is how I would use it in an Ajax call, if I don't find a pure client way to do this.
$homepage = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/');
echo $homepage;
Is there way to do this client side instead so I don't have to ajax the string over?
you could do
JS code:
$.post('phppage.php', { url: url }, function(data) {
document.getElementById('somediv').innerHTML = data;
});
PHP code:
$url = $_POST['url'];
echo file_get_contents($url);
That would get you the contents of the url.
JavaScript cannot go out and scrape data off of pages. It can make a call to a local PHP script that then goes on its behalf and grabs the data, but JavaScript (in the browser) cannot do this.
$.post("/localScript.php", { srcToGet: 'http://example.com' }, function(data){
/* From within here, data is whatever your local script sent back to us */
});
You have options like JSONP and Cross-Origin Resource Sharing at your disposal, but both of those require setting up the other end, so you cannot just choose a domain and start firing off requests for data.
Further Reading: Same origin policy