file_get_contents() keeps timing out

I am making an API which responds to incoming requests by returning xml files. So for example if I go to:

[url]http://localhost/fpapi/fpapi.php?method=film.getTop[/url]

I get an xml file:

<fpapiresponse type=”success”>
<film>
<id>10875721</id>
<title>Moon</title>
<tagline>The last place you’d ever expect to find yourself</tagline>
<description>Astronaut Sam Bell has a qui…
…

It works fine in this mode of operation, but I need to be able to make requests to the API from within a PHP script. That is, I need to be able to open the url above and read the contents of the returned xml file so that I can the data in the PHP script.

Following ‘Example #1’ from [url]http://uk.php.net/manual/en/context.http.php[/url] I am creating a context resource with the encoded post data and then trying to do file_get_contents() on the url of a method in the API.

It just times out. Is the server is making a request to itself? Or is it because I am making the request in the wrong way?

Please ask any further questions if you need me to clarify anything.

Thanks, this is a major problem for me which I really had not anticipated ?

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