An alternative for file_get_contents() in PHP

gistfile1.php

<?php

public function url_get_contents ($url) {
        if (!function_exists('curl_init')){ 
            die('CURL is not installed!');
        }
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        $output = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $output;
    }

?>