How to speed up file_get_contents?

Question

Here\'s my code:

$language = $_GET[\'soundtype\'];
$word = $_GET[\'sound\'];
$word = urlencode($word);
if ($language == \'english\') {
    $url = \"

        

Answer 1

Instead of downloading the whole file before outputting it, consider streaming it out like this:

$in = fopen($url, 'rb', false, $context);
$out = fopen('php://output', 'wb');

header('Content-Type: video/mpeg');
stream_copy_to_stream($in, $out);

If you're daring, you could even try (but that's definitely experimental):

header('Content-Type: video/mpeg');
copy($url, 'php://output');

Another option is using internal redirects and making your web server proxy the request for you. That would free up PHP to do something else. See also my post regarding X-Sendfile and friends.