What are some potential issues with using the file_get_contents function in PHP to extract data from an HTML page?

One potential issue with using the file_get_contents function in PHP to extract data from an HTML page is that it may not handle SSL connections properly. This can lead to errors when trying to access HTTPS URLs. To solve this issue, you can use the cURL extension in PHP, which provides more flexibility and control over HTTP requests, including handling SSL connections. 

// Using cURL to extract data from an HTML page with SSL support
$url = 'https://example.com/page';

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false); // Disable SSL verification
$data = curl_exec($ch);

if($data === false){
    echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($ch);
} else {
    // Process the extracted data
    echo $data;
}

curl_close($ch);

Keywords

file_get_contents PHP HTML page data extraction potential issues

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