how to load the contents of a page into itself without causing an infinite loop?

I am trying get my head around how you can run the following php:

$html = file_get_contents(curPageURL()); //where curPageURL() returns the current page URL

without causing an infinite loop

EDIT

I need to have the contents of the entire, rendered page, in a variable.

I have tried:

if(!isset($_COOKIE['page_fetch'])){
    $html = file_get_contents(curPageURL());
    setcookie('page_fetch',$html, time()开发者_开发问答+20,'/');
} else {
    $html = $_COOKIE['page_fetch'];
}

---

I'm not sure why you'd want to, but could you pass a variable telling it to stop?

if (!$_REQUEST['stop']) {
    $url = curPageURL() . '?stop=1';
    $html = file_get_contents($url);
}

---

There is no way this would not result in an infinite loop.

What your asking could be explained with this fictional example:

function hi() {
   echo '<div>';
   hi();
   echo '</div>';
}

So the answer likely is: you don't want this! You're likely trying to do something else, but not explaining it well. So start with stating what you're actually trying to achieve.

---

You can't. It is, by definition, infinitely recursive.

What I guess you want is a slightly different version of the current page (i.e. one which doesn't load itself again). See answer from newtron for how to do that.

---

I don't know what the problem is with the cookie, perhaps a maximum size or a time-out when the content is sent from the client to the server.

But as you need the value on the server-side, why don't you use a session variable in combination with a time value so that you know if it has expired?