How can developers handle errors such as "bool(false)" when using file_get_contents in PHP to fetch data from external sources?

When using file_get_contents in PHP to fetch data from external sources, developers may encounter errors such as "bool(false)" if the request fails. To handle this, developers can check the return value of file_get_contents and handle the error accordingly, such as by displaying a message to the user or logging the error for debugging purposes. 

$url = 'https://www.example.com/data.json';
$data = file_get_contents($url);

if($data === false) {
    echo 'Error fetching data from external source';
} else {
    // Process the fetched data
    echo $data;
}

Keywords

file_get_contents PHP errors bool(false) external sources

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