Prevent timeout in PHP

[alycium]

I am working on a PHP script that makes an API call to a external site. However, if this site is not available or the request times out, I would like my function to return false.I have found following, but I am not sure on how to implement it on my script, since i use "file_get_contents" to retrieve the content of the external file call.http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1176497/limit-execution-time-of-an-function-or-command-php\[code\] $fp = fsockopen("www.example.com", 80);if (!$fp) { echo "Unable to open\n";} else { fwrite($fp, "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n"); stream_set_timeout($fp, 2); $res = fread($fp, 2000); $info = stream_get_meta_data($fp); fclose($fp); if ($info['timed_out']) { echo 'Connection timed out!'; } else { echo $res; }}\[/code\](From: http://php.net/manual/en/function.stream-set-timeout.php)How would you adress such an issue? Thanks!