http-request.php

// An existing code sample I have uses cURL (found below).
// But is there a reason why someone would use the second example instead of the first example?
// They both appear to do the exact same thing, but the first one is MUCH simpler.
// Thoughts?

<?php
    $response = file_get_contents("http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index?format=xml");
    print_r($response);
?>


<?PHP // is cURL installed yet?
if (!function_exists('curl_init')){
    die('Sorry cURL is not installed!');
}

// OK cool - then let's create a new cURL resource handle
$ch = curl_init();

// Now set some options (most are optional)

// Set URL to download
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index?format=xml");

// Set a referer
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, "http://roughlybrilliant.com/chapter5");

// User agent
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "RoughlyBrillantCurl/1.0");

// Include header in result? (0 = yes, 1 = no)
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

// Should cURL return or print out the data? (true = return, false = print)
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// Timeout in seconds
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);

// Download the given URL, and return output
$output = curl_exec($ch);

// Close the cURL resource, and free system resources
curl_close($ch);

echo $output;
?>

You'll find that for a lot of APIs (Paypay - or other payment gateways, Twitter, etc.), you'll need more extensive configurations for your requests - hence cURL.

file_get_contents() is super simple, but less configurable. I use it to scrape sites for simple things, but when you need to do a PUT or DELETE, etc - cURL is better suited for that.

Both include a sort of authentication header, as well. Diff tools for diff needs, basically.