What alternative function can be used in place of "file_get_contents" in PHP for similar functionality?

If you want to read the contents of a file in PHP without using the "file_get_contents" function, you can use the "fopen", "fread", and "fclose" functions instead. This allows you to open a file, read its contents, and then close the file handle once you're done. This approach provides similar functionality to "file_get_contents" but gives you more control over the file handling process.

$file = 'example.txt';
$handle = fopen($file, 'r');
if ($handle) {
    $contents = fread($handle, filesize($file));
    fclose($handle);
    echo $contents;
} else {
    echo 'Unable to open file.';
}