diff --git a/docs/api/variables/streams.md b/docs/api/variables/streams.md
index 93d5c15e1..c872cf8bb 100644
--- a/docs/api/variables/streams.md
+++ b/docs/api/variables/streams.md
@@ -10,4 +10,7 @@ template.
 {$foo:bar}
 ```
 
+NB. Support for using streams to call variables is deprecated since Smarty v5.1 and will be removed
+in a future version. 
+
 See also [`Template Resources`](../resources.md)
diff --git a/src/Template.php b/src/Template.php
index 0d66ff6e6..8bb5370f1 100644
--- a/src/Template.php
+++ b/src/Template.php
@@ -555,6 +555,9 @@ public function setRightDelimiter($right_delimiter)
 	 */
 	public function getStreamVariable($variable)
 	{
+
+		trigger_error("Using stream variables (\`\{\$foo:bar\}\`)is deprecated.", E_USER_DEPRECATED);
+
 		$_result = '';
 		$fp = fopen($variable, 'r+');
 		if ($fp) {