Does not follow redirects when working with file_get_contents

[abeger]

My test references a URL that turns out to be a 301 redirect. The code being tested uses file_get_contents and works fine outside of the test. When using PHP VCR, however, the fixture stored is just the 301 response. Is there some way to make it follow the redirect?

[adri]

Hey @abeger, thank you. Could you please try the request again with a context, like in this example? Does that work?

$opts = array('http' =>
    array(
        'follow_location' => 1,
    )
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$result = file_get_contents('http://example.com/', false, $context);

We check for follow_location already but in the PHP documentation it says it is 1 by default. I think we need set it by default too.

[abeger]

Interestingly, it followed the redirect with that, but included the header information in the returned content. I'm going to try to look into this a little more and see if I can't figure out where the disconnect is happening. Or at least create a reproducible example.

[abeger]

I ended up creating a little project to demonstrate the issue. You can look at it here: https://github.com/abeger/php-vcr-issue-138

High-level summary:

• file_get_contents follows a 302 redirect just fine without specifying context.
• A cassette wrapped around the call just records the 302 and doesn't follow the redirect. file_get_contents returns null.
• Adding context to the file_get_contents follows the redirect, but the page's header information is prepended to the returned contents.

Let me know if you have any questions!