reading rss without fopen

[Cokemonkey11]

One of my hosts has the fopen command disabled for "security" reasons, I've been reccomended to use fsockopen. Can someone explain to me how to convert this script to use fsockopen instead of fopen?

<?php
	global $indexval;
	function startElement($parser,$tagName,$attrs){
		global $insideitem,$tag;
   			if($insideitem){
				$tag=$tagName;
			}
			elseif($tagName=="ITEM"){
       				$insideitem = true;
   			}
	}

function characterData($parser,$data){
	global $insideitem,$tag,$title,$description,$link;
	if($insideitem&&$indexVal<5){
   			switch($tag){
       			case "TITLE":
			$indexVal++;
       			$title.=$data;
       			break;

       			case "DESCRIPTION":
       			$description.=$data;
       			break;

       			case "LINK":
       			$link.=$data;
       			break;
   			}
	}
}

function endElement($parser,$tagName){
	global $insideitem,$tag,$title,$description,$link;
	if($tagName=="ITEM"&&$indexVal<5){
   			printf("<p><b><a href='%s'>%s</a></b></p>",$link,$title); //trim($link) htmlspecialchars($title)
   			printf("<p>%s</p>",$description);
   			$title="";
   			$description="";
   			$link="";
   			$insideitem=false;
 	}
}



$xml_parser=xml_parser_create(); //Create an XML parser

xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser,"startElement","endElement"); //Set the functions to handle opening and closing tags

xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser,"characterData"); //Set the function to handle blocks of character data

$fp=fopen("http://gocguild.awardspace.com/forums/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2;limit=5;board=2","r") //Open the XML file for reading http://www.sitepoint.com/rss.php
	or die("Error reading RSS data.");

while($data=fread($fp,4096)) //Read the XML file 4KB at a time
	xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp)) //Parse each 4KB chunk with the XML parser created above
		or die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d", //Handle errors in parsing
	xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),  
	xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));

fclose($fp); //Close the XML file

xml_parser_free($xml_parser); //Free up memory used by the XML parser
?>

Thanks,

[bradgrafelman]

Have you tried using [man]file_get_contents/man or the [man]cURL[/man] library instead?

[Cokemonkey11]

No, I just learned how to use RSS syndication with PHP yesterday.

Could you show me how to use those with my script in the OP?

[bradgrafelman]

Well those two functions wouldn't allow you to parse the XML data in a piecewise manner, rather all at once after its been downloaded. In other words, you'd replace the fopen/while loop/fclose with one of the above mentioned methods.

[Cokemonkey11]

My host blocked file get contents as well, and I don't understand cURL.

[bradgrafelman]

If your host is blocking all of these built-in functions of PHP, why not just find a new host that serves you instead of impeding you?

[Cokemonkey11]

Awardspace is the only free webhost I know of that doesn't advertise.. Could you point me in the direction of a better alternative?

I'm just a kid and can't really pay for a good one myself.

Thanks,