How to check reason why file_get_contents returned false in PHP

Question

I tried doing this:

$urls = array(


    "https://www.gov.sg/"




);



    foreach ($urls as $url) {
        d($url);
      //  $url = "http://www.google.com";
    $data = file_get_contents($url);
    d($data);

}

d() is a 3rd-party function like var_dump().

I keep on getting $data = false. It seems like any page from the domain is doing that.

When I tried another domain like google.com, it worked.

The page is valid, I tried it on a browser.

The following similar posts suggest URL encoding issues, and enabling allow_url_fopen, but these don't really apply here: PHP file_get_contents returning false PHP file_get_contents returning false

Why is the function returning false? Also, in general, is there a way to check why a file_get_contents is returning false? Is there a way for PHP to dump the error?

Answer 1

You can get last error like this,

$error = error_get_last();
var_dump($error);

for example, test.php

<?php

$data = file_get_contents("http://hi200.com");
var_dump($data);
$error = error_get_last();
var_dump($error);

php test.php

PHP Warning:  file_get_contents(http://hi200.com): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
 in C:\Users\Dell\Desktop\HQ_Educations\library\test.php on line 3
bool(false)
array(4) {
  ["type"]=>
  int(2)
  ["message"]=>
  string(105) "file_get_contents(http://hi200.com): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
"
  ["file"]=>
  string(52) "C:\Users\Dell\Desktop\HQ_Educations\library\test.php"
  ["line"]=>
  int(3)
}