How to use CURL instead of file_get_contents?

Question

I use file_get_contents function to get and show external links on my specific page.

In my local file everything is okay, but my server doesn't support the file_get_contents function, so I tried to use cURL with the below code:

function file_get_contents_curl($url) {
    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

    $data = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    return $data;
}

 echo file_get_contents_curl('http://google.com');

But it returns a blank page. What is wrong?

what's the [curl_error](http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-error.php) say? — Book Of Zeus, Dec 16 '11 at 22:21
your coding is working, maybe curl is not install ? check out in phpinfo() — malletjo, Dec 16 '11 at 22:22
You are doing no error checking and then wondering why no errors show up. That's.... unwise. — Pekka, Dec 16 '11 at 22:23
I suspect that if your hosting provider has disabled fopen wrappers (needed for `file_get_contents()` to work) then they have not installed curl either. If it's your own server, then enable `allow_url_fopen` in your PHP config. — Brian, Dec 16 '11 at 22:26
in Local get me this message : `The document has moved here.` — Morteza, Dec 16 '11 at 22:36

score 89 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 17 '11 at 08:13

89

try this:

function file_get_contents_curl($url) {
    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);       

    $data = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    return $data;
}

answered Dec 17 '11 at 08:13

lord_viper

1,139
1
9
13

2

Curl returns empty Content.. how can i avoid this? – 151291 Jan 23 '17 at 12:09
1

@151291 adding below configuration worked for me : curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE); – Bhavin Visariya May 30 '20 at 05:00

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 23 '11 at 17:11

11

This should work

function curl_load($url){
    curl_setopt($ch=curl_init(), CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $response = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return $response;
}

$url = "http://www.google.com";
echo curl_load($url);

answered Dec 23 '11 at 17:11

CLUEL3SS

223
1
3
10

3

This code will not behave exactly like file_get_contents. Your code will not follow redirects, file_get_contents does that. – Casper André Casse Jan 16 '14 at 14:05

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 29 '16 at 18:15

//You can try this . It should work fine.

function curl_tt($url){

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);  
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 3);     
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

return $data;
}
echo curl_tt("https://google.com");

Sergio Cabral · Answer 4 · 2018-05-08T00:59:14.083

I encountered such a problem accessing Google Drive content via the direct link.

After calling file_get_contents returned 302 Moved temporarily

//Any google url. This example is fake for Google Drive direct link.
$url = "https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0BxQKKJYjuNElbFBNUlBndmVHHAj";
$html = file_get_contents($url);
echo $html; //print none because error 302.

With the code below it worked again:

//Any google url. This example is fake for Google Drive direct link.
$url = "https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0BxQKKJYjuNElbFBNUlBndmVHHAj";

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);  
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 3);     
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
$html = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

echo $html;

I tested it today, 03/19/2018

`curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);` and `curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);` got my tripped up for a long time, too. Great catch! — Bing, May 07 '18 at 17:48

How to use CURL instead of file_get_contents?

4 Answers4

Linked

Related