What are the potential pitfalls of using file_get_contents in PHP to retrieve content from external sources?

Potential pitfalls of using file_get_contents in PHP to retrieve content from external sources include security vulnerabilities such as allowing remote code execution and exposing sensitive data. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use a more secure alternative like cURL, which provides better control over the request and response process. 

$url = 'https://www.example.com/data';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

if ($response === false) {
    // Handle error
} else {
    // Process the response
}

Keywords

file_get_contents PHP external sources security vulnerabilities data validation

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