[RESOLVED] fopen() Problems

zaver

Hello

I am using fopen() to open a xml file for an rss reader and i am getting this error:

$xml='http://www.digg.com/rss/index.xml';

$fp = fopen($xml, "r");
if (!$fp) {
die("could not open XML input");
}

Warning: fopen(http://www.digg.com/rss/index.xml) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed!

could not open XML input

can someone help solving this or at least help me hide the ugly warning msg and only show the "could not open XML input" when it can not open the url?

Thank you

MarkR

Have you tried getting that URL from the command line of your server (e.g. with wget or PHP CLI) (to check that it's not firewalled or otherwise blocked)?

It's really unhelpful not knowing what the error was. To find out more, enable all errors and notices using error_reporting(E_ALL).

Also log your errors to a file somehow rather than outputting them (Hint: Ini settings display_errors off, error_log somewhere - set with ini_set or another way).

Mark

zaver

i have a problem finding php.ini in cpanel.

I am not sure if i can even have access in php.ini

In the case that the url is firewalled is there a way to get it with some other way or am i doomed for this kind of problems??
any suggestions??

MarkR

zaver wrote:
I am not sure if i can even have access in php.ini

Editing php.ini is not necessary as those settings can be changed with ini_set.

Log on to your shell and try to fetch the file directly from the command line. If you can't do that, you won't be able to from PHP.

In the case that the url is firewalled is there a way to get it with some other way or am i doomed for this kind of problems??

Explain to your systems admin that you need to be able to do this and have the appropriate config change made. They're there to serve you.

Mark

bradgrafelman

The problem is that their webserver refuses to serve the content unless you specify a User-Agent HTTP header.

Look into using cURL and sending said header.

MarkR

Or look into sending said header without using Curl.

Using cURL is now almost entirely unnecessary for any application as PHP's built in HTTP client has most of the same functionality - which includes sending headers. Look at the http stream wrappers page in the manual for more details.

Mark

dimkin

bradgrafelman wrote:
The problem is that their webserver refuses to serve the content unless you specify a User-Agent HTTP header.

Look into using cURL and sending said header.

it's possible to use ini_set() with fopen()

        ini_set('user_agent', 'my_agent_signature');

zaver

Thanks guys

ini_set('user_agent', 'my_agent_signature');

works very well
thanks dimkin

bradgrafelman

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.