How can I stop a curl script?

Question

I have a curl script that I have calling Rotten Tomatoes. Every time I run it, even in a for loop from 1 to 10, it runs infinitely. The only way to stop it is by restarting the server, the page continues to call the rotten tomatoes site until the server goes down. The curl script works for other APIs so it should work for this one. Here it is, any idea?: For the $temp_movie, that gets its value and works properly.

$ch = curl_init();
$api_link = "http://api.rottentomatoes.com/api/public/v1.0/movies.json?apikey=****&q=".$temp_movie."&page_limit=1";
echo $api_link."<br>";
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $api_link);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, '3');
$content = trim(curl_exec($ch));
curl_close($ch);
$rottentomatoes = json_decode($content, true);

you did, in fact, close your curl connection. but you didn't kill the php afterward, at what point is this "infinite" behavior occurring? — Kristian, Feb 28 '13 at 03:10
I got it to work, but I don't know why it works. Added the answer below :/ — Daniel Fein, Feb 28 '13 at 03:20

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 24 '14 at 21:26

I have no idea why this worked but like I said, the curl script worked for other APIs, so I tried copy and pasting the same curl code (again) and trying again. Some reason this works? Is there any difference that I'm just not seeing?:

$ch = curl_init();
$api_link = "http://api.rottentomatoes.com/api/public/v1.0/movies.json?apikey=****&q=".$temp_movie."&page_limit=1";
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $api_link);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, '3');
$content = trim(curl_exec($ch));
curl_close($ch);
$rottentomatoes = json_decode($content, true);

you didn't echo `$api_link` in this version. maybe that has something to do with it. — Kristian, Feb 28 '13 at 17:30

How can I stop a curl script?

1 Answers1