PHP curl not sending post params - php

Question

I have an online form to submit data as http post.
If no data is send as post , it will return the following error message
We are sorry, the form that you have submitted is invalid or no longer exists.
I am using the following code to send http post data using curl.But I am always getting the error message as output.
How to resolve this issue.Did I miss anything.I printed the curl request, and the post parameters are not sent.How can I fix this?
My code is given below
function curlUsingPost($url, $data)
{
$content_type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded';
if(empty($url) OR empty($data))
{
return 'Error: invalid Url or Data';
}
//url-ify the data for the POST
$fields_string = '';
foreach($data as $key=>$value) { $fields_string .= $key.'='.$value.'&'; }
$fields_string = http_build_query($data).'\n';
echo $fields_string;
//open connection
$ch = curl_init();
//set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
// curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, ['Accept: ' . $content_type]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,array($content_type));
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST,true);
curl_setopt( $curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array( 'Expect:' ) );
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$fields_string);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,10); # timeout after 10 seconds, you can increase it
//curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); # Set curl to return the data instead of printing it to the browser.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT , "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1)"); # Some server may refuse your request if you dont pass user agent
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
print_r($info );
//execute post
$result = curl_exec($ch);
//close connection
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
$url = 'office.promptip.com:8443/his1.max/Services/Webform.aspx?request=submitwebform&token=202D36560E444E466658461615120F75411B09634C696C6F79454E795E7C7A5154505645414F456C584C17101B443D431D0B654D66686D7C454E795E2D7E5152565341404145625E4213141E4273421E5E66486B666F2A464B7A5B79785F54520645444F15635C454516134422421A0D664A3D68687C454E79587F7D5F52575714424043635E1611181D16704D1D0E654F69696F2A474A7A0A78785807525E45414E406350424016134422421A0D374C6F686C7C44482F59787D5E530150104218426D584316181A4177411B0F';
//echo $url;
$data = [
'C0IFirstName' => 'John Doe',
'C1ILastName' => 'Doe John',
'C2IPosition' =>'Father-Guardian',
'U3I80'=>'8129020464',
'U4I150'=>'johndoe#johndoe.com',
'U5I79'=>'This is the message buddy',
'U6I102' => 'Ann',
'U7I105' =>'Doe',
'U8I52' =>'FS1',
'C9IClientId'=> rand ( 0,100000 ),
'U10I21'=>'Website-Enquiry Form'
];
echo curlUsingPost($url,$data);

Answer 1

Solution
Add this to your curl request:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
And replace & with & in URL you're requesting:
$url = 'office.promptip.com:8443/his1.max/Services/Webform.aspx?request=submitwebform&token=202D36560E444E466658461615120F75411B09634C696C6F79454E795E7C7A5154505645414F456C584C17101B443D431D0B654D66686D7C454E795E2D7E5152565341404145625E4213141E4273421E5E66486B666F2A464B7A5B79785F54520645444F15635C454516134422421A0D664A3D68687C454E79587F7D5F52575714424043635E1611181D16704D1D0E654F69696F2A474A7A0A78785807525E45414E406350424016134422421A0D374C6F686C7C44482F59787D5E530150104218426D584316181A4177411B0F';
Explenation
At first, you're requesting wrong URL, which was probably copied from some HTML documentation. Normally a & entity would be replaced by & char by HTML interpreter, but this does not work with curl and you have to replace the entity manually.
Also the server returns
We are sorry, the form that you have submitted is invalid or no
longer exists.
for each end every request in response body. But for successfull request it also provides a Location header. Normally browser would follow this location, make a second request and display success message. You have to tell cURL to do exactly the same with curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true).