PHP to retrieve title from a webpage

Question

I have a PHP code to retrieve the title in a webpage. However, I cannot access this specific website(fine for other website) for some reason(no respond from the server). Why is this happening to only this website? What other method should I use? I tried cURL but still can't access the webpage.

This is my code:

<?php

function page_title($url) {

    $page = @file_get_contents($url);

    if (!$page) return null;

    $matches = array();

    if (preg_match('/<title>(.*?)<\/title>/', $page, $matches)) {
        return $matches[1];
    }
    else {
        return null;
    }
}


echo page_title('http://www.alibaba.com/');

?>

It came out: Warning: file_get_contents(http://www.alibaba.com): failed to open stream: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond. in C:\xampp\htdocs\myPHP\index.php on line 16. Thanks!

What happens if you remove the @ in front of `file_get_contents()`? — Reeno, Aug 26 '14 at 09:06
possible duplicate of [Get title of website via link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4348912/get-title-of-website-via-link) — MoshMage, Aug 26 '14 at 09:08
because your ip is not allowed to access the alibab.com via `curl` or `file_get_contents` on the server of alibaba.com — Satish Sharma, Aug 26 '14 at 09:12
@SKRocks but i can access the website(via web browser) but just not in php codings — Cael, Aug 26 '14 at 09:14
@Cael try the answer of FrenchBarbu you will get your answer — Satish Sharma, Aug 26 '14 at 09:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 26 '14 at 09:13

2

You have to set user_agent

$page = file_get_contents($url,false,stream_context_create(array("http" => array("user_agent" => "any"))));

edited Aug 26 '14 at 09:13

Satish Sharma

9,547
6
29
51

answered Aug 26 '14 at 09:13

FrenchBarbu

36
1
5

PHP to retrieve title from a webpage

1 Answers1