CURL Sends Requests Twice For Single Request - php

Question

I am using the following code to send a CURL request to send a SMS. But the SMS is being sent twice.
$message = urlencode($message);
$smsurl = "http://$url/sendmessage.php?user=matkaon&password=$password&mobile=$mobile&message=$message&sender=$sender&type=3";
$ch = curl_init($smsurl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$sentsms = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
I tried commenting some of the lines which solved the issue but gives an output as below:
What is the proper method to send a CURL request only once?

Answer 1

Try this:
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $smsurl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_exec($ch);
Don't pass the URL as argument on the init function.
I don't know why the function is being called twice, but I never pass the URL as argument and always work great this way.

Answer 2

You'd usually use curl_init() with no parameters, then pass the URL into curl_exec.
Modified example 1 from curl_exec docs:
<?php
// create a new cURL resource
$ch = curl_init();
// set URL and other appropriate options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $smsurl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
// grab URL and pass it to the browser
curl_exec($ch);
// close cURL resource, and free up system resources
curl_close($ch);
?>