Prevent timeout in PHP - php

Question

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.
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

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 2

<?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 3

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 4

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