Handle time-outs and errors with file()

I'm using file() to get the contents of a remote page in my script but
I cannot find any information regarding how I could *gracefully*
handle a broken network connection or even a time-out (slow
connection).

Is there a way?

---
Example:
$menu = file('http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html');
foreach ($menu as $line_num => $line) {
echo $line."\n";
}

On Jan 29, 2008 10:58 AM, John Papas <jspapas@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm using file() to get the contents of a remote page in my script but
> I cannot find any information regarding how I could *gracefully*
> handle a broken network connection or even a time-out (slow
> connection).
>
> Is there a way?
>
> ---
> Example:
> $menu = file('http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html'<http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html%27>
> );
> foreach ($menu as $line_num => $line) {
> echo $line."\n";
> }


theoretically, you could use a stream context and set a notification
handler, however, i was unable to get notifications when using this code:

function httpStreamNotificationHandler($notification_code, $severity,
$message, $message_code, $bytes_transferred, $bytes_max) {
echo __FUNCTION__ . PHP_EOL;
var_dump(func_get_args());
}
$options = array('http' =>
array('method' => 'GET',
'timeout' => 3
)
);

$streamContext = stream_context_create($options);
if(stream_context_set_params($streamContext, array('notification',
'httpStreamNotificationHandler'))) {
echo 'stream context parameters set, loading remote resource..' .
PHP_EOL;
// load remote resource
$theFile = file('http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html', null,
$streamContext);
var_dump($theFile);
} else {
echo 'couldnt set context parameters' . PHP_EOL;
}

you might also get something out of the timeout option, which i set in the
code above,
but ive not verified its working correctly either.
also, you might try curl.

-nathan

On Jan 29, 2008 10:58 AM, John Papas <jspapas@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm using file() to get the contents of a remote page in my script but
> I cannot find any information regarding how I could *gracefully*
> handle a broken network connection or even a time-out (slow
> connection).
>
> Is there a way?
>
> ---
> Example:
> $menu = file('http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html');
> foreach ($menu as $line_num => $line) {
> echo $line."\n";
> }
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to accomplish or what sort of
access you have to the server, but if it were me I wouldn't rely on a
remote connection in real time. I would have a cron job that
periodically updated the results that I am expecting so that reads on
your site are very fast. Like I said though I'm not sure what you're
using this for so I cannot say whether or not it is okay for you to
cache this data locally for 5 minutes or even 1 day.

If you can cache it but cannot run cron jobs, then just write the
return buffer to a file and hold that for as long as possible checking
the last time it was wrote to see if it needs a refresh.

On Tue, January 29, 2008 9:58 am, John Papas wrote:
> I'm using file() to get the contents of a remote page in my script but
> I cannot find any information regarding how I could *gracefully*
> handle a broken network connection or even a time-out (slow
> connection).
>
> Is there a way?
>
> ---
> Example:
> $menu = file('http://www.remotesite.org/mypage.html');

Use http://php.net/set_error_handler

You can change the timeout with set_ini() right before the file() call.

If $menu === false, then it failed.

> foreach ($menu as $line_num => $line) {
> echo $line."\n";
> }
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>


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