Fetching Data from mca.gov.in using curl and PHP - php

Question

I am trying to fetch the data from http://mca.gov.in. I am using CURL and PHP for extracting the data.
Here is the form : http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/viewSignatoryDetails.do
When I do the HTML form submit directly through this HTML form to ( "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/viewSignatoryDetails.do"), it works.
I developed my own form and submitted directly to the above link and it works too.
However, when I pass the same parameters to retrieve the data using curl, it is not giving any data.
Here is the code I am using to fetch the data from http://mca.gov.in.
$data = http_build_query($post_data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/viewSignatoryDetailsAction.do");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
echo $result;
Any idea, what could be wrong or If I have missed anything ?

Answer 1

Your problem is that the url you are trying to fetch uses a captcha and you cannot bypass this by code.
You need to use a this url "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/popupSignatories.do" that does not require a captcha.
So change your code to:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/popupSignatories.do");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array(
"companyid" => "AAA-4416"
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
echo $result;
Additionally if you want the company details, use "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/companyMasterDataPopup.do"
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/companyMasterDataPopup.do");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array(
"method" => "ajaxGetCompanyMasterData",
"companyid" => 'AAA-4416'
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
echo $result;
Update
There are some new APIs that can be found at company master data API from https://data.gov.in