What are the advantages and disadvantages of using cURL versus file_get_contents for accessing external APIs in PHP?

When accessing external APIs in PHP, both cURL and file_get_contents are commonly used methods. cURL offers more flexibility and control over requests, including support for various protocols and authentication methods. On the other hand, file_get_contents is simpler to use and requires less code. However, it may not be as robust or customizable as cURL. 

// Using cURL to access an external API
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://api.example.com/data');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// Using file_get_contents to access an external API
$response = file_get_contents('https://api.example.com/data');

Keywords

cURL file_get_contents external APIs advantages disadvantages

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