php fopen with CURL - using CURL instead of fopen_url()

fopen.php

<?php
function get_data($url) {
	$ch = curl_init();
	$timeout = 5;
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
	$data = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);
	return $data;
}

// now using it:

$url = "https://gravatar.com/romuloctba.json";
$get = get_data($url);
$json = json_decode($get);
print_r($json);

I use this when I get something like:

Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]: http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0

Obs: It may not work locally if you don't have cURL installed and added to your PATH (eg on windows)