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Asked: 2026-05-31T04:35:58+00:00

According to the description of the Google Custom Search API you can invoke it

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According to the description of the Google Custom Search API you can invoke it using the GET verb of the REST interface, like with the example:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key=INSERT-YOUR-KEY&cx=017576662512468239146:omuauf_lfve&q=lectures

I setup my API key and custom search engine, and when pasted my test query directly on my browser it worked fine, and I got the JSON file displayed to me.

Then I tried to invoke the API from my PHP code by using:

$json = file_get_contents("$url") or die("failed");

Where $url was the same one that worked on the browser, but my PHP code was dying when trying to open it.

After that I tried with curl, and it worked. The code was this:

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$body = curl_exec($ch);

Questions:

  1. How come file_get_contents() didn’t work and curl did?
  2. Could I use fsocket for this as well?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Question 1:

    At first you should check ini setting allow_url_fopen, AFAIK this is the only reason why file_get_contents() shouldn’t work. Also deprecated safe_mode may cause this.

    Oh, based on your comment, you have to add http:// to URL when using with file system functions, it’s a wrapper that tells php that you need to use http request, without it function thinks you require to open ./google.com (the same as google.txt).

    Question 2:

    Yes, you can build almost any cURL request with sockets.

    My personal opinion is that you should stick with cURL because:

    • timeout settings
    • handles all possible HTTP states
    • easy and detailed configuration (there is no need for detailed knowledge of HTTP headers)
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