Alternative to file_get_contents() which uses curl to get around remote SSL certificate snags

file_get_contents_curl.php

function file_get_contents_curl($url) {
  $ch = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, true);
  // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $url);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
  $result = curl_exec($ch);
  curl_close($ch);
  return $result;
}