This option enables the URL-aware fopen wrappers that enable accessing URL object like files. Default wrappers are provided for the access of remote files using the ftp or http protocol, some extensions like zlib may register additional wrappers.
[b]Note: This setting can only be set in php.ini due to security reasons. [/b]
I appreciate you pointing that out again. I have to wonder why Pear developers wrote in the documentation that the above method should be done to overcome this that setting being set to Off. Pear developers are pretty good at PHP.
I don’t know the definitive answer, and can see how I might want to be able to do this too. Having Safe Mode set “on” in your ini may override all of your attempts though.
As I understand it, this is because Safe mode governs whether or not you can fopen anything except in directories you have stipulated in the ini.
When a script tries to open a file with, for example, fopen() or gzopen(), the location of the file is checked. When the file is outside the specified directory-tree, PHP will refuse to open it.
That only concerns the server directories; safe mode does not prevent you from accessing data from the outside. Edit: Then again, I could be rather wrong.