Unable to file_get_contents to work

Question

I am using facebook graph api, to retrieve logged in user's info.

$facebookdata = json_decode(file_get_contents('https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=' . $fb_accesstoken . '&fields=name,picture'),true);

Now When I var_dump I get null. I did try to goto url https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN&fields=id,name,picture. It shows the name and photourl.

I appreciate any help.

try to `var_dump` without `json_decode` first and see the output. "debug" your program! — ahmet alp balkan, May 28 '11 at 10:41
that means the problem is it is not working. try to fetch some other page (like this page for example) keep debugging. — ahmet alp balkan, May 28 '11 at 11:55

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 28 '11 at 12:20

Instead of using file_get_contents you can you the Facebook PHP SDK (see on github) which is easier to use :

require "facebook.php";
$facebook = new Facebook(array(
    'appId'  => YOUR_APP_ID,
    'secret' => YOUR_APP_SECRET,
));

$facebook->setAccessToken("...");

$args['fields'] = "name,picture";
$facebookdata = $facebook->api('/me', $args);

Check the example of the SDK out (well documented) if you want to see the flow to get the user access token.

Hope that helps !

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 28 '11 at 10:51

1

Check if allow_url_fopen is enabled in your php.ini. Otherwise adapt, because file_get_contents will not be able to read from http URLs then.

Second, raise your error_reporting level. It should have told you so.

If you get no error message, then access with the PHP user_agent might be blocked. There is another php.ini setting for that. Also alternatively, just try curl.

answered May 28 '11 at 10:51

mario

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I tried to use file_get_contents with other urls, it works fine. allow_url_fopen is enabled. I appreciate your help. – Ivanka T May 28 '11 at 10:58
1

Also with https urls? And which is your current error level now? What does `$http_response_header` say? – mario May 28 '11 at 11:03

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 26 '12 at 15:27

You should determine what http response code is being returned by your request.

I've found that file_get_contents() only works when the http response is 200, OK.

It doesn't return a string if the response code is 404 (page not found), 400 (bad request), etc.

Hitting the Facebook API with an incorrect access_token returns 400.

Example:

file_get_contents() with 'http://www.google.co.uk' works, http response from google is 200

file_get_contents() with 'http://www.google.co.uk/me' is null, http response from google is 404

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 29 '13 at 11:15

 //i had the same problem before.for some reason the server has a problem with file_get_contents and i used this function.try it instead
 /* gets the data from a URL */
 function get_myurl_data($url) {
$ch = curl_init();
$timeout = 5;
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $data;
 }
 $url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=' . $fb_accesstoken . '&fields=name,picture';
 $facebookdata = json_decode(get_myurl_data($url));

Unable to file_get_contents to work

4 Answers4

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