It is possible to read the stdin
by creating a file handle to php://stdin
and then read from it with fgets()
for a line for example (or, as you already stated, fgetc()
for a single character):
<?php
$f = fopen( 'php://stdin', 'r' );
while( $line = fgets( $f ) ) {
echo $line;
}
fclose( $f );
?>