The easiest way to read from a text file is to grab a whole line through fgets (think of the final s as standing for “string”)

<?php
$fh = fopen("testfile.txt", 'r') or
die("File does not exist or you lack permission to open it");
$line = fgets($fh);
fclose($fh);
echo $line;
?>

If you created the file textfile.txt, you’ll get the first line:
Line 1

Or you can retrieve whole file as in following example

<?php
$fh = fopen("testfile.txt", 'r') or
die("File does not exist or you lack permission to open it");

$theData = fread($fh, filesize("testfile.txt"));
echo $theData;
fclose($fh);
?>