What are the potential pitfalls of using file_get_contents to extract menu data in PHP?

Potential pitfalls of using file_get_contents to extract menu data in PHP include lack of error handling for failed requests, potential security vulnerabilities if the URL is user-controlled, and performance issues if the remote file is large or slow to load. To solve these issues, it's recommended to use more robust methods like cURL for making HTTP requests, implement error handling to deal with failed requests, and sanitize user input to prevent security vulnerabilities.

// Using cURL to fetch menu data with error handling and URL validation
$url = 'https://example.com/menu.json';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);

if($response === false) {
    die('Error fetching menu data');
}

// Process the menu data here
$menuData = json_decode($response, true);

// Close cURL resource
curl_close($ch);