This method has no error handling, it simply puts out "false" and it is impossible to check for NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL, TIMEOUT or any other error...

You might have the same problem as me, where testing a non-existent domain will search for a subdomain relative to the domain you are executing from, for example:

// Test with working domain
var_dump( dns_get_record('google.com', DNS_A) );
/* works, returns
Array
(
    [host] => google.com
    [class] => IN
    [ttl] => 299
    [type] => A
    [ip] => 172.217.12.142
)
*/

// Test with invalid domain on our website (example.com)
var_dump( dns_get_record('invalidtestingname.com', DNS_A) );
/* Doesn't work, pretend it's a subdomain
Array
(
    [host] => invalidtestingname.com.example.com
    [class] => IN
    [ttl] => 299
    [type] => A
    [ip] => xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
)
*/

If anyone has that problem, add a "dot" at the end of the domain name, for example, instead of
dns_get_record('invalidtestingname.com', DNS_A);
Do this:
dns_get_record('invalidtestingname.com.', DNS_A);

Although this works very well for general DNS queries if you want to do a direct DNS query to a specified DNS server (rather than using OS resolution) try PHPDNS: http://www.purplepixie.org/phpdns/

You can do direct (TCP or UDP) low-level queries to a nameserver and recurse at will. Very useful for testing specific servers and also for walking through a recursive resolution.

Get more than one type at once like this:
<?php
$dnsr = dns_get_record('php.net', DNS_A + DNS_NS);
print_r($dnsr);
?>

Using DNS_ALL fails on some domains where DNS_ANY works. I noticed the function getting stuck on the DNS_PTR record, which caused it to return FALSE with this error:
PHP Warning:  dns_get_record(): res_nsend() failed in ....

This gets all records except DNS_PTR:
<?php
$dnsr = dns_get_record('php.net', DNS_ALL - DNS_PTR);
print_r($dnsr);
?>

Please note that Firewalls and anti malware software detects  (and depending on company policies even blocks) DNS_ANY requests. 
In that case the usage of this function fails.
This is because DNS_ANY requests can be  exploited for creating "amplification (D)DOS attackes": You send 1 DNS_ANY request and get a huge amount of information back, thus even small requests can result into hugh network load.

I advise to use a more explicit name-request instead of using DNS_ANY.

When I use DNS_ALL as the second parameter to invoke dns_get_record() on the OS of Windows, PHP emits a warning with the message "Warning: dns_get_record(): Type '251721779' not supported in blah.php on line blah", and DNS_ANY is always OKAY.

Sadly this method does not allow for using an arbitrary nameserver.

If you need to make a request  using a specific DNS server, you'll need to use either Pear/Net_DNS2, or libdns ( https://github.com/DaveRandom/LibDNS ).

If you want something shorter and lighter, you can also use this 150 lines function: https://gist.github.com/bohwaz/ddc61c4f7e031c3221a89981e70b830c