Having trouble making a local copy of an xml feed using php

Question

I'm trying to save a local copy of an xml file, and then open it with simple xml, but i'm getting some errors.. here's my code:

$feedURL = "https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites";

//$xml = file_get_contents("$feedURL");
$xml = file_get_contents($feedURL);
file_put_contents("video.xml", $xml);


// read feed into SimpleXML object
//$sxml = simplexml_load_file($feedURL);
$sxml = simplexml_load_file('video.xml');

The error i'm getting is as follows:

Warning: file_get_contents(https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: Result too large in D:\wamp\www\videos2.php on line 48

I'm not sure why it would be too large of a result, it only returns 6kb of xml. what am i doing wrong?

Update: This is running on a windows platform using WAMP server - not ideal, but i'm stuck with it.

Update 2: I've tried using curl and fwrite to achieve a similar result, as suggested below, but it won't write the xml file to the local server. It doesn't give me any errors though.

update 3: This is obviously a very specific problem with the hosting environment, but I'm not sure where to start looking for the problem. Using curl works great on a linux-based dev server, but is causing problems on this windows-based production server. An extra help in troubleshooting this issue would be most appreciated!

Answer 1

Correct answer for the question:

It is possible you are having the same problem as of this question: CURL and HTTPS, "Cannot resolve host" (DNS-Issue)

---

Other Details:

You can use SimpleXML to load and save the xml data

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites', NULL, TRUE);
$xml->asXML('video.xml');

I have tested the code above in a WAMP server and it works fine.

Update: If the above returns error message "[simplexmlelement.--construct]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity ...." It's possible that your server does not allow to include external data or the php file/script does not have the right permission.

Try the following:
1. echo the content of the xml file.

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites', NULL, TRUE);
echo htmlentities($xml->asXML());

If you managed to retrieved the xml content and print it to the browser, then your server is allowing to include external content and most likely the problem with the file permission. Make sure file/script have the right to create xml file.

If the above still does not work try using cURL.

function getPageContent($options)
{
    $default = array(
        'agent' => $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],
        'url' => '',
        'referer' => 'http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],
        'header' => 0,
        'timeout' => 5,
        'user' => '',
        'proxy' => '',
    );
    $options = array_merge($default, $options);

    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $options['url']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, $options['header']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    if ($options['proxy'] != '') {
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $options['proxy']);
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $options['timeout']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $options['referer']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $options['agent']);
    if ($options['user'] != '') {
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD, $options['user']);
    }

    $result = array();
    $result['content'] = curl_exec($ch);
    $result['info'] = curl_getinfo($ch);
    $result['error'] = curl_error($ch);

    curl_close($ch);

    return $result;
}

$result = getPageContent(array(
    'proxy' => '[ip or address]:[port]', // if needed 
    'user' => '[username]:[password]',   // if needed
    'url' => 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites'
));

if (empty($result['error'])) {
    // ok

    // content of xml file
    echo htmlentities($result['content']);

    // file
    $filename = 'video.xml';
    // Open File
    if (!$fp = fopen($filename, 'wt')) {
        die("Unable to open '$filename'\n\n");
    }
    // write content to file
    fwrite($fp, $result['content']);
    // close file
    fclose($fp);

} else {

    // failed
    echo '<pre>';
    echo 'Error details;';
    print_r ($result['error']);
    echo '<hr />Other info:';
    print_r ($result['info']);
    echo '</pre>';
}

Answer 2

Have you tried using curl and fwrite to get the contents and write them to a local file?

$ch = curl_init("https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/manitobachildhealth/favorites");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$output = curl_exec($ch);       
curl_close($ch);

fwrite("video.xml",$output);