What are the limitations of using fopen to access an HTTPS page in PHP?

When using fopen to access an HTTPS page in PHP, there are limitations due to security concerns. The fopen function may not be able to handle the SSL/TLS encryption required for HTTPS connections. To solve this issue, you can use cURL, which is a more secure and reliable way to make HTTPS requests in PHP.

// Initialize cURL session
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the URL to access
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://example.com');

// Set cURL options for HTTPS connection
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false); // Disable SSL verification for testing purposes

// Execute the cURL session
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// Close cURL session
curl_close($ch);

// Output the response
echo $response;