Angular $http and PHP - php

Question

I cannot make the following code to work!
<input type="text" ng-model="name" >
<button ng-click="send(name);">SEND</button>
angular.module('myapp', []).
controller('MyController', ['$scope','$http', function ($scope,$http) {
$scope.name='Jim';
$scope.send=function() {
return $http({
method: 'POST',
data:{server:'Hi'},
url: 'test.php',
dataType: 'json'
}).then(function(data){console.log(data)},function(data){console.log('failure')});
};
}]);
and my very simple test.php:
<?php
$request=$_POST['server'];
$request.='Jim';
echo json_encode($request);
?>
By pressing button SEND, I am getting ($http returns successfully): Object {data: ""Jim"", status: 200, config: Object, statusText: "OK"}. Why data equals that object and why 'Hi' is not passed to PHP?
Please, someone to help. I am going to be crazy!

Answer 1

Probably because in your PHP script you are reading in wrong way the body of the request, try that:
<?php
header("Content-Type: application/json");
$entityBody = file_get_contents('php://input');
$request = json_decode($entityBody);
$request->server .= ' Jim';
echo json_encode($request);
?>

Answer 2

I just ran into this problem a few days ago. Angular $http doesn't serialize data for POST like php is expecting, and I don't think Content-Type is set correctly either. If you want php to get the request variable $POST as it's expecting and not have to read from 'php://input', you need to serialize your post data and make sure Content-Type is correct. This is what worked for me.
$http({
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8'
},
data: formatPostData( {server:'Hi'} ),
url: 'test.php',
dataType: 'json'
})
And the funtion used to serialize post data is like this.
function formatPostData( args ) {
var postString = '';
angular.forEach( args, function(v, k){
postString += k + '='+encodeURIComponent(v)+'&';
})
return postString.slice(0, -1);
}