Paypal IPN Script, issue with feof and fgets

Question

I've been having issues with my Paypal IPN listener script for a couple of days now. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Paypal IPN system, basically Paypal sends your script with a message about the transaction, which you send back with a couple of bits added. If Paypal receives the correct reply, it'll reply with 'VERIFIED', and if not it'll say 'INVALID'.

I initially thought that the problem I was experiencing was with the 'fsockopen' command: $fp=fsockopen('ssl://sandbox.paypal.com', 443, $errno, $errstr, 30); However, having reduced all of my code to pretty much just this line, it seems to connect ok. The problem comes in with the 'feof' and 'fgets' commands. The script just hangs up, and I don't know why. I've essentially copied the code suggested on the Paypal IPN Listener website, so I assumed that it would work! If you could help me understand why feof or fgets are causing it to stall then your help would be much appreciated.

Here's the full script:

$postback = 'cmd=_notify-validate'; //doesn't matter what these include for now
$header='abc';

//Script has been activated, create debug
$filename = 'debug/debug1_script.txt';
$filehandle=fopen($filename, 'w');
fwrite($filehandle,$postback);
fclose($filehandle);


$fp = fsockopen ('ssl://www.sandbox.paypal.com', 443, $errno, $errstr, 30);//open the connection

//no connection, create debug file
if(!$fp){
    $filename = 'debug/debug2_fpfail.txt';
    $filehandle=fopen($filename, 'w');
    fwrite($filehandle, $errstr.'('.$errno.')');
    fclose($filehandle);
    die();
}


//post data back
fputs($fp, $header . $postback);

//create debug file
$filename = 'debug/debug3_postback.txt';
$filehandle=fopen($filename, 'w');
fwrite($filehandle, $header.$postback);
fclose($filehandle);


//script hangs with either of the two following lines included
while(!feof($fp)){
    $res=fgets($fp,1024);
}

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

So I think I found a solution, which was instead of using the

while(!feof())

and

fgets()

combo, I used this:

$res=stream_get_contents($fp, 1024);

Worked first time! Now I can get on with my life.