PHP - reading FTP file without downloading it/saving it locally - php

Question

I would like to get FTP files content without saving it locally.
This is what I have so far:
$ftp_server = "my_server";
$ftp_conn = ftp_connect($ftp_server) or die("Could not connect to the server");
if (#ftp_login($ftp_conn, "username", "password")) {
$local_file = 'C:\Users\user\Desktop\testing.txt';
$fp = fopen($local_file, "w");
$d = ftp_nb_fget($ftp_conn, $fp, "commands.yml", FTP_BINARY);
while ($d == FTP_MOREDATA) {
$d = ftp_nb_continue($ftp_conn);
}
if ($d != FTP_FINISHED) {
echo "Error downloading $server_file";
exit(1);
}
ftp_close($ftp_conn);
fclose($fp);
$filename = 'C:\Users\user\Desktop\testing.txt';
$handle = fopen($filename, "r");
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
fclose($handle);
echo $contents;
} else {
echo "Couldn't establish a connection.";
}
The code above saves the file and read the file content. Is it possible to read the file without saving it locally?

Answer 1

From the answer on the official PHP site from bob at notallhere dot com:
Don't want to use an intermediate file? Use 'php://output' as the
filename and then capture the output using output buffering.
ob_start();
$result = ftp_get($ftp, "php://output", $file, FTP_BINARY);
$data = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();