How to replace file_get_contents() with a Wordpress Filesystem call

Question

I'm using the PHP file_get_contents() function to retrieve and echo the contents of an SVG-file.

<?php echo file_get_contents( get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/assets/images/Search_Glyph.svg' ); ?>

I checked the theme with the Wordpress.org theme checker and I am currently resolving all the issues. One of the issues is the use of file_get_contents.

It gives me the following warning:

WARNING: file_get_contents was found in the file header.php File operations should use the WP_Filesystem methods instead of direct PHP filesystem calls.

I tried finding information about the $wp_filesystem thing, but there is very little information available and even less examples (to be honest, I'm not totally sure if that's the correct function to use).

How can I use a Wordpress function to retrieve a file and echo the contents of it in a PHP-file?

I'm really at loss what I should do with this. All help is very much appreciated!

Answer 1

Firstly add this two line to your functions.php file. Sorry I forgot to mention about this earlier.

require_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-base.php';
require_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-direct.php';

now you can use WP_Filesystem_Direct::get_contents($path) instead of file_get_contents($path)

Update: 20 July 2023

After some digging it's safe to say that you should use the file system like this:

$filesystem = new WP_Filesystem_Direct( true );

// Now use it like this

$filesystem->get_contents($path)

All available methods can be found here https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-direct.php/

Answer 2

Solution 01

$wp_filesystem = new \WP_Filesystem_Direct(null);
$svg= $wp_filesystem->get_contents(get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/assets/images/Search_Glyph.svg');

Solution 02

$remote_svg_file = wp_remote_get(get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/assets/images/Search_Glyph.svg');
$svg_content = wp_remote_retrieve_body($remote_svg_file );