Prevent timeout in PHP

Question

Hi guys,

I am working on a PHP script that makes an API call to a external site. However, if this site is not available or the request times out, I would like my function to return false.

I have found following, but I am not sure on how to implement it on my script, since i use "file_get_contents" to retrieve the content of the external file call.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1176497/limit-execution-time-of-an-function-or-command-php

   $fp = fsockopen("www.example.com", 80);
if (!$fp) {
    echo "Unable to open\n";
} else {

    fwrite($fp, "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n");
    stream_set_timeout($fp, 2);
    $res = fread($fp, 2000);

    $info = stream_get_meta_data($fp);
    fclose($fp);

    if ($info['timed_out']) {
        echo 'Connection timed out!';
    } else {
        echo $res;
    }

}

(From: http://php.net/manual/en/function.stream-set-timeout.php)

How would you adress such an issue? Thanks!

Answer 1

From the PHP manual for File_Get_Contents (comments):

<?php 
$ctx = stream_context_create(array( 
    'http' => array( 
        'timeout' => 1 
        ) 
    ) 
); 
file_get_contents("http://example.com/", 0, $ctx); 
?>

Answer 2

I'd recommend using the cURL family of PHP functions. You can then set the timeout using curl_setopt():

curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,2); // two second timeout

This will cause the curl_exec() function to return FALSE after the timeout.

In general, using cURL is better than any of the file reading functions; it's more dependable, has more options and is not regarded as a security threat. Many sysadmins disable remote file reading, so using cURL will make your code more portable and secure.

Answer 3

<?php
$fp = fsockopen("www.example.com", 80);

if (!$fp) {
    echo "Unable to open\n";
} else {
    stream_set_timeout($fp, 2); // STREAM RESOURCE, NUMBER OF SECONDS TILL TIMEOUT
    // GET YOUR FILE CONTENTS
}
?>

Answer 4

<?php
$fp = fsockopen("www.example.com", 80, $errno, $errstr, 4);
if ($fp) {
    stream_set_timeout($fp, 2);
}