PHP has ssh2 stream wrappers (disabled by default), so you can use sftp connections with any function that supports stream wrappers by using ssh2.sftp:// for protocol, e.g.
The ssh2 functions aren't very good. Hard to use and harder yet to install, using them will guarantee that your code has zero portability. My recommendation would be to use phpseclib, a pure PHP SFTP implementation.
I performed a full-on cop-out and wrote a class which creates a batch file and then calls sftp via a system call. Not the nicest (or fastest) way of doing it but it works for what I need and it didn't require any installation of extra libraries or extensions in PHP.
Could be the way to go if you don't want to use the ssh2 extensions
<?php
include('Net/SFTP.php');
$sftp = new Net_SFTP('www.domain.tld');
if (!$sftp->login('username', 'password')) {
exit('Login Failed');
}
// puts a three-byte file named filename.remote on the SFTP server
$sftp->put('filename.remote', 'xxx');
// puts an x-byte file named filename.remote on the SFTP server,
// where x is the size of filename.local
$sftp->put('filename.remote', 'filename.local', NET_SFTP_LOCAL_FILE);