file_get_contents when url doesn't exist

Question

I\'m using file_get_contents() to access a URL.

file_get_contents(\'http://somenotrealurl.com/notrealpage\');

If the URL is not real, it r

Answer 1

While file_get_contents is very terse and convenient, I tend to favour the Curl library for better control. Here's an example.

function fetchUrl($uri) {
    $handle = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_URL, $uri);
    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_POST, false);
    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, false);
    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 10);

    $response = curl_exec($handle);
    $hlength  = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE);
    $httpCode = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    $body     = substr($response, $hlength);

    // If HTTP response is not 200, throw exception
    if ($httpCode != 200) {
        throw new Exception($httpCode);
    }

    return $body;
}

$url = 'http://some.host.com/path/to/doc';

try {
    $response = fetchUrl($url);
} catch (Exception $e) {
    error_log('Fetch URL failed: ' . $e->getMessage() . ' for ' . $url);
}