What are the limitations of using include or readfile functions for displaying external content on a webpage?

The limitations of using include or readfile functions for displaying external content on a webpage include potential security risks such as allowing malicious code execution or exposing sensitive information. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use PHP's file_get_contents function along with htmlspecialchars to safely display external content on a webpage. 

$url = 'http://example.com/external_content.txt';
$content = file_get_contents($url);
echo htmlspecialchars($content);

Keywords

include readfile limitations external content webpage

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