Following code returns the curl output as a string.
<?php
/ create curl resource
$ch = curl_init();
/ set url
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "example.com");
/return the transfer as a string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
/ $output contains the output string
$output = curl_exec($ch);
/ close curl resource to free up system resources
curl_close($ch);
?>