Robert and others, I made that change in the code. It still does not trap the failure. I believe the reason is that the script is timing out while file_get_contents() is sitting there waiting for input. The problem is that the function never returns, so there is no return value to check. What I need is to get file_get_contents() to quit trying before the script timeout limit is reached, so I can catch the failure and try again. If that cannot be done, then I need to get the shutdown function to work. For reference, my original question is at http://marc.info/?l=php-general&m=125622597723923&w=2 . Thanks. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Cummings [mailto:robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 08:44 To: Marshall Burns Cc: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Trapping failure of file_get_contents() Marshall Burns wrote: > I have a script that downloads a sequence of files online. Every hundred > files or so, it fails with: Check for the return value being equal to false: <?php if( ($sFil = file_get_contents( $sURL )) === false ) { // FAIL } else { // SUCCESS } ?> Make sure you use the triple '=' comparison operator since you need to check against the type being boolean also. Cheers, Rob. -- http://www.interjinn.com Application and Templating Framework for PHP -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php