Related
Can anyone show me how to do a PHP cURL with an HTTP POST?
I want to send data like this:
username=user1, password=passuser1, gender=1
To www.example.com
I expect the cURL to return a response like result=OK. Are there any examples?
<?php
//
// A very simple PHP example that sends a HTTP POST to a remote site
//
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,"http://www.example.com/tester.phtml");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
"postvar1=value1&postvar2=value2&postvar3=value3");
// In real life you should use something like:
// curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
// http_build_query(array('postvar1' => 'value1')));
// Receive server response ...
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$server_output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
// Further processing ...
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
?>
Procedural
// set post fields
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init('http://www.example.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
// execute!
$response = curl_exec($ch);
// close the connection, release resources used
curl_close($ch);
// do anything you want with your response
var_dump($response);
Object oriented
<?php
// mutatis mutandis
namespace MyApp\Http;
class CurlPost
{
private $url;
private $options;
/**
* #param string $url Request URL
* #param array $options cURL options
*/
public function __construct($url, array $options = [])
{
$this->url = $url;
$this->options = $options;
}
/**
* Get the response
* #return string
* #throws \RuntimeException On cURL error
*/
public function __invoke(array $post)
{
$ch = \curl_init($this->url);
foreach ($this->options as $key => $val) {
\curl_setopt($ch, $key, $val);
}
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
$response = \curl_exec($ch);
$error = \curl_error($ch);
$errno = \curl_errno($ch);
if (\is_resource($ch)) {
\curl_close($ch);
}
if (0 !== $errno) {
throw new \RuntimeException($error, $errno);
}
return $response;
}
}
Usage
// create curl object
$curl = new \MyApp\Http\CurlPost('http://www.example.com');
try {
// execute the request
echo $curl([
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
]);
} catch (\RuntimeException $ex) {
// catch errors
die(sprintf('Http error %s with code %d', $ex->getMessage(), $ex->getCode()));
}
Side note here: it would be best to create some kind of interface called AdapterInterface for example with getResponse() method and let the class above implement it. Then you can always swap this implementation with another adapter of your like, without any side effects to your application.
Using HTTPS / encrypting traffic
Usually there's a problem with cURL in PHP under the Windows operating system. While trying to connect to a https protected endpoint, you will get an error telling you that certificate verify failed.
What most people do here is to tell the cURL library to simply ignore certificate errors and continue (curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);). As this will make your code work, you introduce huge security hole and enable malicious users to perform various attacks on your app like Man In The Middle attack or such.
Never, ever do that. Instead, you simply need to modify your php.ini and tell PHP where your CA Certificate file is to let it verify certificates correctly:
; modify the absolute path to the cacert.pem file
curl.cainfo=c:\php\cacert.pem
The latest cacert.pem can be downloaded from the Internet or extracted from your favorite browser. When changing any php.ini related settings remember to restart your webserver.
A live example of using php curl_exec to do an HTTP post:
Put this in a file called foobar.php:
<?php
$ch = curl_init();
$skipper = "luxury assault recreational vehicle";
$fields = array( 'penguins'=>$skipper, 'bestpony'=>'rainbowdash');
$postvars = '';
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) {
$postvars .= $key . "=" . $value . "&";
}
$url = "http://www.google.com";
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST, 1); //0 for a get request
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$postvars);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT ,3);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
print "curl response is:" . $response;
curl_close ($ch);
?>
Then run it with the command php foobar.php, it dumps this kind of output to screen:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Title</title>
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0">
<body>
A mountain of content...
</body>
</html>
So you did a PHP POST to www.google.com and sent it some data.
Had the server been programmed to read in the post variables, it could decide to do something different based upon that.
It's can be easily reached with:
<?php
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.domain.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post));
$response = curl_exec($ch);
var_export($response);
1.Step by step
Initialize the cURL session:
$url = "www.domain.com";
$ch = curl_init($url);
If your request has headers like bearer token or defining JSON contents you have to set HTTPHEADER options to cURL:
$token = "generated token code";
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // for define content type that is json
'bearer: '.$token, // send token in header request
'Content-length: 100' // content length for example 100 characters (can add by strlen($fields))
)
);
If you want to include the header in the output set CURLOPT_HEADER to true:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
Set RETURNTRANSFER option to true to return the transfer as a string instead of outputting it directly:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
To check the existence of a common name in the SSL peer certificate can be set to 0(to not check the names), 1(not supported in cURL 7.28.1), 2(default value and for production mode):
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
For posting fields as an array by cURL:
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
Execute cURL and return the string. depending on your resource this returns output like result=OK:
$result = curl_exec($ch);
Close cURL resource, and free up system resources:
curl_close($ch);
2.Use as a class
The whole call_cURL class that can be extended:
class class_name_for_call_cURL {
protected function getUrl() {
return "www.domain.com";
}
public function call_cURL() {
$token = "generated token code";
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
$url = $this->getUrl();
$output = $this->_execute($fields, $url, $token);
// if you want to get json data
// $output = json_decode($output);
if ($output == "OK") {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
private function _execute($postData, $url, $token) {
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
}
Using the class and call cURL:
$class = new class_name_for_call_cURL();
var_dump($class->call_cURL()); // output is true/false
3.One function
A function for using anywhere that needed:
function get_cURL() {
$url = "www.domain.com";
$token = "generated token code";
$postData = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
This function is usable just by:
var_dump(get_cURL());
Curl Post + Error Handling + Set Headers [thanks to #mantas-d]:
function curlPost($url, $data=NULL, $headers = NULL) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
if(!empty($data)){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
}
if (!empty($headers)) {
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
}
$response = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_error($ch)) {
trigger_error('Curl Error:' . curl_error($ch));
}
curl_close($ch);
return $response;
}
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
function curlPost($url, $data) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$error = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);
if ($error !== '') {
throw new \Exception($error);
}
return $response;
}
I'm surprised nobody suggested file_get_contents:
$url = "http://www.example.com";
$parameters = array('username' => 'user1', 'password' => 'passuser1', 'gender' => '1');
$options = array('http' => array(
'header' => 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n',
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => http_build_query($parameters)
));
$context = stream_context_create($options);
$result = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
it's simple, it works; I use it in an environment where I control the code at both ends.
even better, use json_decode (and set up your code to return JSON)
$result = json_decode(file_get_contents($url, false, $context), TRUE);
this approach invokes curl behind the scenes, but you don't jump through as many hoops.
Answer refined from this original answer elsewhere on Stack Overflow:
PHP sending variables to file_get_contents()
If the form is using redirects, authentication, cookies, SSL (https), or anything else other than a totally open script expecting POST variables, you are going to start gnashing your teeth really quick. Take a look at Snoopy, which does exactly what you have in mind while removing the need to set up a lot of the overhead.
A simpler answer IF you are passing information to your own website is to use a SESSION variable. Begin php page with:
session_start();
If at some point there is information you want to generate in PHP and pass to the next page in the session, instead of using a POST variable, assign it to a SESSION variable. Example:
$_SESSION['message']='www.'.$_GET['school'].'.edu was not found. Please try again.'
Then on the next page you simply reference this SESSION variable. NOTE: after you use it, be sure you destroy it, so it doesn't persist after it is used:
if (isset($_SESSION['message'])) {echo $_SESSION['message']; unset($_SESSION['message']);}
Here are some boilerplate code for PHP + curl
http://www.webbotsspidersscreenscrapers.com/DSP_download.php
include in these library will simplify development
<?php
# Initialization
include("LIB_http.php");
include("LIB_parse.php");
$product_array=array();
$product_count=0;
# Download the target (store) web page
$target = "http://www.tellmewhenitchanges.com/buyair";
$web_page = http_get($target, "");
...
?>
Examples of sending form and raw data:
$curlHandler = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curlHandler, [
CURLOPT_URL => 'https://postman-echo.com/post',
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
/**
* Specify POST method
*/
CURLOPT_POST => true,
/**
* Specify array of form fields
*/
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'baz' => 'biz',
],
]);
$response = curl_exec($curlHandler);
curl_close($curlHandler);
echo($response);
If you try to login on site with cookies.
This code:
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
It May not works if you try to login, because many sites return status 200, but the post is not successful.
The easy way to check if the login post is successful is to check if it setting cookies again. If in output have a Set-Cookies string, this means the posts are not successful and it starts a new session.
Also, the post can be successful, but the status can redirect instead of 200.
To be sure the post is successful try this:
Follow location after the post, so it will go to the page where the post does redirect to:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
And than check if new cookies existing in the request:
if (!preg_match('/^Set-Cookie:\s*([^;]*)/mi', $server_output))
{echo 'post successful'; }
else { echo 'not successful'; }
Easiest is to send data as application/json. This will take an array as input and properly encodes it into a json string:
$data = array(
'field1' => 'field1value',
'field2' => 'field2value',
)
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($data));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-Type:application/json',
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$resultStr = curl_exec($ch);
return json_decode($resultStr, true);
Can anyone show me how to do a PHP cURL with an HTTP POST?
I want to send data like this:
username=user1, password=passuser1, gender=1
To www.example.com
I expect the cURL to return a response like result=OK. Are there any examples?
<?php
//
// A very simple PHP example that sends a HTTP POST to a remote site
//
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,"http://www.example.com/tester.phtml");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
"postvar1=value1&postvar2=value2&postvar3=value3");
// In real life you should use something like:
// curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
// http_build_query(array('postvar1' => 'value1')));
// Receive server response ...
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$server_output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
// Further processing ...
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
?>
Procedural
// set post fields
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init('http://www.example.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
// execute!
$response = curl_exec($ch);
// close the connection, release resources used
curl_close($ch);
// do anything you want with your response
var_dump($response);
Object oriented
<?php
// mutatis mutandis
namespace MyApp\Http;
class CurlPost
{
private $url;
private $options;
/**
* #param string $url Request URL
* #param array $options cURL options
*/
public function __construct($url, array $options = [])
{
$this->url = $url;
$this->options = $options;
}
/**
* Get the response
* #return string
* #throws \RuntimeException On cURL error
*/
public function __invoke(array $post)
{
$ch = \curl_init($this->url);
foreach ($this->options as $key => $val) {
\curl_setopt($ch, $key, $val);
}
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
$response = \curl_exec($ch);
$error = \curl_error($ch);
$errno = \curl_errno($ch);
if (\is_resource($ch)) {
\curl_close($ch);
}
if (0 !== $errno) {
throw new \RuntimeException($error, $errno);
}
return $response;
}
}
Usage
// create curl object
$curl = new \MyApp\Http\CurlPost('http://www.example.com');
try {
// execute the request
echo $curl([
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
]);
} catch (\RuntimeException $ex) {
// catch errors
die(sprintf('Http error %s with code %d', $ex->getMessage(), $ex->getCode()));
}
Side note here: it would be best to create some kind of interface called AdapterInterface for example with getResponse() method and let the class above implement it. Then you can always swap this implementation with another adapter of your like, without any side effects to your application.
Using HTTPS / encrypting traffic
Usually there's a problem with cURL in PHP under the Windows operating system. While trying to connect to a https protected endpoint, you will get an error telling you that certificate verify failed.
What most people do here is to tell the cURL library to simply ignore certificate errors and continue (curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);). As this will make your code work, you introduce huge security hole and enable malicious users to perform various attacks on your app like Man In The Middle attack or such.
Never, ever do that. Instead, you simply need to modify your php.ini and tell PHP where your CA Certificate file is to let it verify certificates correctly:
; modify the absolute path to the cacert.pem file
curl.cainfo=c:\php\cacert.pem
The latest cacert.pem can be downloaded from the Internet or extracted from your favorite browser. When changing any php.ini related settings remember to restart your webserver.
A live example of using php curl_exec to do an HTTP post:
Put this in a file called foobar.php:
<?php
$ch = curl_init();
$skipper = "luxury assault recreational vehicle";
$fields = array( 'penguins'=>$skipper, 'bestpony'=>'rainbowdash');
$postvars = '';
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) {
$postvars .= $key . "=" . $value . "&";
}
$url = "http://www.google.com";
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST, 1); //0 for a get request
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$postvars);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT ,3);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
print "curl response is:" . $response;
curl_close ($ch);
?>
Then run it with the command php foobar.php, it dumps this kind of output to screen:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Title</title>
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0">
<body>
A mountain of content...
</body>
</html>
So you did a PHP POST to www.google.com and sent it some data.
Had the server been programmed to read in the post variables, it could decide to do something different based upon that.
It's can be easily reached with:
<?php
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.domain.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post));
$response = curl_exec($ch);
var_export($response);
1.Step by step
Initialize the cURL session:
$url = "www.domain.com";
$ch = curl_init($url);
If your request has headers like bearer token or defining JSON contents you have to set HTTPHEADER options to cURL:
$token = "generated token code";
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // for define content type that is json
'bearer: '.$token, // send token in header request
'Content-length: 100' // content length for example 100 characters (can add by strlen($fields))
)
);
If you want to include the header in the output set CURLOPT_HEADER to true:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
Set RETURNTRANSFER option to true to return the transfer as a string instead of outputting it directly:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
To check the existence of a common name in the SSL peer certificate can be set to 0(to not check the names), 1(not supported in cURL 7.28.1), 2(default value and for production mode):
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
For posting fields as an array by cURL:
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
Execute cURL and return the string. depending on your resource this returns output like result=OK:
$result = curl_exec($ch);
Close cURL resource, and free up system resources:
curl_close($ch);
2.Use as a class
The whole call_cURL class that can be extended:
class class_name_for_call_cURL {
protected function getUrl() {
return "www.domain.com";
}
public function call_cURL() {
$token = "generated token code";
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
$url = $this->getUrl();
$output = $this->_execute($fields, $url, $token);
// if you want to get json data
// $output = json_decode($output);
if ($output == "OK") {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
private function _execute($postData, $url, $token) {
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
}
Using the class and call cURL:
$class = new class_name_for_call_cURL();
var_dump($class->call_cURL()); // output is true/false
3.One function
A function for using anywhere that needed:
function get_cURL() {
$url = "www.domain.com";
$token = "generated token code";
$postData = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
This function is usable just by:
var_dump(get_cURL());
Curl Post + Error Handling + Set Headers [thanks to #mantas-d]:
function curlPost($url, $data=NULL, $headers = NULL) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
if(!empty($data)){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
}
if (!empty($headers)) {
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
}
$response = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_error($ch)) {
trigger_error('Curl Error:' . curl_error($ch));
}
curl_close($ch);
return $response;
}
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
function curlPost($url, $data) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$error = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);
if ($error !== '') {
throw new \Exception($error);
}
return $response;
}
I'm surprised nobody suggested file_get_contents:
$url = "http://www.example.com";
$parameters = array('username' => 'user1', 'password' => 'passuser1', 'gender' => '1');
$options = array('http' => array(
'header' => 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n',
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => http_build_query($parameters)
));
$context = stream_context_create($options);
$result = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
it's simple, it works; I use it in an environment where I control the code at both ends.
even better, use json_decode (and set up your code to return JSON)
$result = json_decode(file_get_contents($url, false, $context), TRUE);
this approach invokes curl behind the scenes, but you don't jump through as many hoops.
Answer refined from this original answer elsewhere on Stack Overflow:
PHP sending variables to file_get_contents()
If the form is using redirects, authentication, cookies, SSL (https), or anything else other than a totally open script expecting POST variables, you are going to start gnashing your teeth really quick. Take a look at Snoopy, which does exactly what you have in mind while removing the need to set up a lot of the overhead.
A simpler answer IF you are passing information to your own website is to use a SESSION variable. Begin php page with:
session_start();
If at some point there is information you want to generate in PHP and pass to the next page in the session, instead of using a POST variable, assign it to a SESSION variable. Example:
$_SESSION['message']='www.'.$_GET['school'].'.edu was not found. Please try again.'
Then on the next page you simply reference this SESSION variable. NOTE: after you use it, be sure you destroy it, so it doesn't persist after it is used:
if (isset($_SESSION['message'])) {echo $_SESSION['message']; unset($_SESSION['message']);}
Here are some boilerplate code for PHP + curl
http://www.webbotsspidersscreenscrapers.com/DSP_download.php
include in these library will simplify development
<?php
# Initialization
include("LIB_http.php");
include("LIB_parse.php");
$product_array=array();
$product_count=0;
# Download the target (store) web page
$target = "http://www.tellmewhenitchanges.com/buyair";
$web_page = http_get($target, "");
...
?>
Examples of sending form and raw data:
$curlHandler = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curlHandler, [
CURLOPT_URL => 'https://postman-echo.com/post',
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
/**
* Specify POST method
*/
CURLOPT_POST => true,
/**
* Specify array of form fields
*/
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'baz' => 'biz',
],
]);
$response = curl_exec($curlHandler);
curl_close($curlHandler);
echo($response);
If you try to login on site with cookies.
This code:
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
It May not works if you try to login, because many sites return status 200, but the post is not successful.
The easy way to check if the login post is successful is to check if it setting cookies again. If in output have a Set-Cookies string, this means the posts are not successful and it starts a new session.
Also, the post can be successful, but the status can redirect instead of 200.
To be sure the post is successful try this:
Follow location after the post, so it will go to the page where the post does redirect to:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
And than check if new cookies existing in the request:
if (!preg_match('/^Set-Cookie:\s*([^;]*)/mi', $server_output))
{echo 'post successful'; }
else { echo 'not successful'; }
Easiest is to send data as application/json. This will take an array as input and properly encodes it into a json string:
$data = array(
'field1' => 'field1value',
'field2' => 'field2value',
)
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($data));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-Type:application/json',
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$resultStr = curl_exec($ch);
return json_decode($resultStr, true);
I'm working on Globe Labs API to send an SMS. But before I can send an SMS, the mobile number I want to send message to needs to be subscribed so I can get the access_token which will be used in sending SMS.
There are 2 options to subscribe - via SMS or via Web Form. I was able to use first option without any problem. But I can't make the second option work.
According to the documentation, after the subscriber keyed-in the received confirmation pin on the page and clicked the Confirm button to authorize the subscriber, the page will then be redirected to the redirect_uri of my application, and a Code parameter will be passed(via GET) to it.
Here's the part where I fail to make it work:
To get the access token, you need to do a POST request via https://developer.globelabs.com.ph/oauth/access_token with your ‘app_id’, ‘app_secret’ and ‘code’ as the parameters. The parameters ‘access_token’ and ‘subscriber_number’ will then be returned to your Redirect URI as a response.
Here's my code:
$app_id = '<my_app_id>';
$app_secret = '<my_app_secret>';
$content = array(
'app_id' => $app_id,
'app_secret' => $app_secret,
'code' => $this->input->get('code')
);
$url = 'http://developer.globelabs.com.ph/oauth/access_token';
$this->post_to_url($url, $content);
function post_to_url($url, $data) {
$fields = '';
foreach($data as $key => $value) {
$fields .= $key . '=' . $value . '&';
}
rtrim($fields, '&');
$post = curl_init();
curl_setopt($post, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($post, CURLOPT_POST, count($data));
curl_setopt($post, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
curl_setopt($post, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$result = curl_exec($post);
curl_close($post);
if(!$result){
die('Error: "' . curl_error($post) . '" - Code: ' . curl_errno($post));
} else {
$this->Sms_Api_model->save_subscriber_data();
}
}
This is my redirect URL: http://api.forexcargo.us/sms_api/globelabs_api?code=[code]
And the result I get:
Error: "" - Code:
EDIT:
I tried to use a form and send my data via method POST and it worked. So it really might be my curl setup.
What am I doing wrong?
Any help is highly appreciated. Thank you!
Apologies for being a newbie regarding curl. Apparently, I had to add the following code to see the errors on my code because the URL I'm using has its error checking disabled:
error_reporting(-1);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
set_time_limit(0);
And my new code:
function do_post_request($post_data)
{
error_reporting(-1);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
set_time_limit(0);
$url = 'https://developer.globelabs.com.ph/oauth/access_token';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_data);
// execute!
$response = curl_exec($ch);
// close the connection, release resources used
curl_close($ch);
// do anything you want with your response
if($this->json_validator($response) == 1){
$decode_data = json_decode($response, true);
$post_data_arr = array('access_token' => $decode_data['access_token'], 'subscriber_number' => $decode_data['subscriber_number']);
$this->Sms_Api_model->save_subscriber_data($post_data_arr);
//var_dump(http_response_code(200));
}
}
$content = [
'app_id' => $app_id,
'app_secret' => $app_secret,
'code' => $this->input->get('code')
];
$post_request = $this->do_post_request($content);
Now it's working and I was able to save the data I received in my database. Thank you everyone for your help!
Can anyone show me how to do a PHP cURL with an HTTP POST?
I want to send data like this:
username=user1, password=passuser1, gender=1
To www.example.com
I expect the cURL to return a response like result=OK. Are there any examples?
<?php
//
// A very simple PHP example that sends a HTTP POST to a remote site
//
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,"http://www.example.com/tester.phtml");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
"postvar1=value1&postvar2=value2&postvar3=value3");
// In real life you should use something like:
// curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,
// http_build_query(array('postvar1' => 'value1')));
// Receive server response ...
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$server_output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
// Further processing ...
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
?>
Procedural
// set post fields
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init('http://www.example.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
// execute!
$response = curl_exec($ch);
// close the connection, release resources used
curl_close($ch);
// do anything you want with your response
var_dump($response);
Object oriented
<?php
// mutatis mutandis
namespace MyApp\Http;
class CurlPost
{
private $url;
private $options;
/**
* #param string $url Request URL
* #param array $options cURL options
*/
public function __construct($url, array $options = [])
{
$this->url = $url;
$this->options = $options;
}
/**
* Get the response
* #return string
* #throws \RuntimeException On cURL error
*/
public function __invoke(array $post)
{
$ch = \curl_init($this->url);
foreach ($this->options as $key => $val) {
\curl_setopt($ch, $key, $val);
}
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
\curl_setopt($ch, \CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
$response = \curl_exec($ch);
$error = \curl_error($ch);
$errno = \curl_errno($ch);
if (\is_resource($ch)) {
\curl_close($ch);
}
if (0 !== $errno) {
throw new \RuntimeException($error, $errno);
}
return $response;
}
}
Usage
// create curl object
$curl = new \MyApp\Http\CurlPost('http://www.example.com');
try {
// execute the request
echo $curl([
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
]);
} catch (\RuntimeException $ex) {
// catch errors
die(sprintf('Http error %s with code %d', $ex->getMessage(), $ex->getCode()));
}
Side note here: it would be best to create some kind of interface called AdapterInterface for example with getResponse() method and let the class above implement it. Then you can always swap this implementation with another adapter of your like, without any side effects to your application.
Using HTTPS / encrypting traffic
Usually there's a problem with cURL in PHP under the Windows operating system. While trying to connect to a https protected endpoint, you will get an error telling you that certificate verify failed.
What most people do here is to tell the cURL library to simply ignore certificate errors and continue (curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);). As this will make your code work, you introduce huge security hole and enable malicious users to perform various attacks on your app like Man In The Middle attack or such.
Never, ever do that. Instead, you simply need to modify your php.ini and tell PHP where your CA Certificate file is to let it verify certificates correctly:
; modify the absolute path to the cacert.pem file
curl.cainfo=c:\php\cacert.pem
The latest cacert.pem can be downloaded from the Internet or extracted from your favorite browser. When changing any php.ini related settings remember to restart your webserver.
A live example of using php curl_exec to do an HTTP post:
Put this in a file called foobar.php:
<?php
$ch = curl_init();
$skipper = "luxury assault recreational vehicle";
$fields = array( 'penguins'=>$skipper, 'bestpony'=>'rainbowdash');
$postvars = '';
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) {
$postvars .= $key . "=" . $value . "&";
}
$url = "http://www.google.com";
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST, 1); //0 for a get request
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$postvars);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT ,3);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
print "curl response is:" . $response;
curl_close ($ch);
?>
Then run it with the command php foobar.php, it dumps this kind of output to screen:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Title</title>
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0">
<body>
A mountain of content...
</body>
</html>
So you did a PHP POST to www.google.com and sent it some data.
Had the server been programmed to read in the post variables, it could decide to do something different based upon that.
It's can be easily reached with:
<?php
$post = [
'username' => 'user1',
'password' => 'passuser1',
'gender' => 1,
];
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.domain.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post));
$response = curl_exec($ch);
var_export($response);
1.Step by step
Initialize the cURL session:
$url = "www.domain.com";
$ch = curl_init($url);
If your request has headers like bearer token or defining JSON contents you have to set HTTPHEADER options to cURL:
$token = "generated token code";
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // for define content type that is json
'bearer: '.$token, // send token in header request
'Content-length: 100' // content length for example 100 characters (can add by strlen($fields))
)
);
If you want to include the header in the output set CURLOPT_HEADER to true:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
Set RETURNTRANSFER option to true to return the transfer as a string instead of outputting it directly:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
To check the existence of a common name in the SSL peer certificate can be set to 0(to not check the names), 1(not supported in cURL 7.28.1), 2(default value and for production mode):
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
For posting fields as an array by cURL:
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
Execute cURL and return the string. depending on your resource this returns output like result=OK:
$result = curl_exec($ch);
Close cURL resource, and free up system resources:
curl_close($ch);
2.Use as a class
The whole call_cURL class that can be extended:
class class_name_for_call_cURL {
protected function getUrl() {
return "www.domain.com";
}
public function call_cURL() {
$token = "generated token code";
$fields = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
$url = $this->getUrl();
$output = $this->_execute($fields, $url, $token);
// if you want to get json data
// $output = json_decode($output);
if ($output == "OK") {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
private function _execute($postData, $url, $token) {
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
}
Using the class and call cURL:
$class = new class_name_for_call_cURL();
var_dump($class->call_cURL()); // output is true/false
3.One function
A function for using anywhere that needed:
function get_cURL() {
$url = "www.domain.com";
$token = "generated token code";
$postData = array(
"username" => "user1",
"password" => "passuser1",
"gender" => 1
);
// for sending data as json type
$fields = json_encode($postData);
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt(
$ch,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array(
'Content-Type: application/json', // if the content type is json
'bearer: '.$token // if you need token in header
)
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
This function is usable just by:
var_dump(get_cURL());
Curl Post + Error Handling + Set Headers [thanks to #mantas-d]:
function curlPost($url, $data=NULL, $headers = NULL) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
if(!empty($data)){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
}
if (!empty($headers)) {
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
}
$response = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_error($ch)) {
trigger_error('Curl Error:' . curl_error($ch));
}
curl_close($ch);
return $response;
}
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
curlPost('google.com', [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => '12345',
]);
function curlPost($url, $data) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$error = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);
if ($error !== '') {
throw new \Exception($error);
}
return $response;
}
I'm surprised nobody suggested file_get_contents:
$url = "http://www.example.com";
$parameters = array('username' => 'user1', 'password' => 'passuser1', 'gender' => '1');
$options = array('http' => array(
'header' => 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n',
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => http_build_query($parameters)
));
$context = stream_context_create($options);
$result = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
it's simple, it works; I use it in an environment where I control the code at both ends.
even better, use json_decode (and set up your code to return JSON)
$result = json_decode(file_get_contents($url, false, $context), TRUE);
this approach invokes curl behind the scenes, but you don't jump through as many hoops.
Answer refined from this original answer elsewhere on Stack Overflow:
PHP sending variables to file_get_contents()
If the form is using redirects, authentication, cookies, SSL (https), or anything else other than a totally open script expecting POST variables, you are going to start gnashing your teeth really quick. Take a look at Snoopy, which does exactly what you have in mind while removing the need to set up a lot of the overhead.
A simpler answer IF you are passing information to your own website is to use a SESSION variable. Begin php page with:
session_start();
If at some point there is information you want to generate in PHP and pass to the next page in the session, instead of using a POST variable, assign it to a SESSION variable. Example:
$_SESSION['message']='www.'.$_GET['school'].'.edu was not found. Please try again.'
Then on the next page you simply reference this SESSION variable. NOTE: after you use it, be sure you destroy it, so it doesn't persist after it is used:
if (isset($_SESSION['message'])) {echo $_SESSION['message']; unset($_SESSION['message']);}
Here are some boilerplate code for PHP + curl
http://www.webbotsspidersscreenscrapers.com/DSP_download.php
include in these library will simplify development
<?php
# Initialization
include("LIB_http.php");
include("LIB_parse.php");
$product_array=array();
$product_count=0;
# Download the target (store) web page
$target = "http://www.tellmewhenitchanges.com/buyair";
$web_page = http_get($target, "");
...
?>
Examples of sending form and raw data:
$curlHandler = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curlHandler, [
CURLOPT_URL => 'https://postman-echo.com/post',
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
/**
* Specify POST method
*/
CURLOPT_POST => true,
/**
* Specify array of form fields
*/
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'baz' => 'biz',
],
]);
$response = curl_exec($curlHandler);
curl_close($curlHandler);
echo($response);
If you try to login on site with cookies.
This code:
if ($server_output == "OK") { ... } else { ... }
It May not works if you try to login, because many sites return status 200, but the post is not successful.
The easy way to check if the login post is successful is to check if it setting cookies again. If in output have a Set-Cookies string, this means the posts are not successful and it starts a new session.
Also, the post can be successful, but the status can redirect instead of 200.
To be sure the post is successful try this:
Follow location after the post, so it will go to the page where the post does redirect to:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
And than check if new cookies existing in the request:
if (!preg_match('/^Set-Cookie:\s*([^;]*)/mi', $server_output))
{echo 'post successful'; }
else { echo 'not successful'; }
Easiest is to send data as application/json. This will take an array as input and properly encodes it into a json string:
$data = array(
'field1' => 'field1value',
'field2' => 'field2value',
)
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($data));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-Type:application/json',
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$resultStr = curl_exec($ch);
return json_decode($resultStr, true);
I want to send data to an API. The data include simple variables: username, password, email, etc.
The problem is that O want to send data to this using POST method. I searched this issue on Google, and everyone is saying to go for CURL.
What is CURL? Is it a function, script, API or what?
Is there any other way to do it?
I want to send something like this:
$username, $password to www.abc.com?username=$username&password=$password
Best Regards
By using this function you can send a post request with an optional number of
parameters. Just fill in the postdata array with key values pairs.
Example usage are provided.
<?php
function do_post_request($url, $postdata)
{
$content = "";
// Add post data to request.
foreach($postdata as $key => $value)
{
$content .= "{$key}={$value}&";
}
$params = array('http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'content' => $content
));
$ctx = stream_context_create($params);
$fp = fopen($url, 'rb', false, $ctx);
if (!$fp) {
throw new Exception("Connection problem, {$php_errormsg}");
}
$response = #stream_get_contents($fp);
if ($response === false) {
throw new Exception("Response error, {$php_errormsg}");
}
return $response;
}
// Post variables.
$postdata = array(
'username' => 'value1',
'password' => 'value2',
'param3' => 'value3'
);
do_post_request("http://www.example.com", $postdata);
?>
Simply use: file_get_contents()
// building array of variables
$content = http_build_query(array(
'username' => 'value',
'password' => 'value'
));
// creating the context change POST to GET if that is relevant
$context = stream_context_create(array(
'http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => $content, )));
$result = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com', null, $context);
//dumping the reuslt
var_dump($result);
cURL is a library "that allows you to connect and communicate to many different types of servers with many different types of protocols". So you can use cURL to send an HTTP POST request. Please read the PHP manual for detailed information: http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php
But cURL is not the only answer. You can use PHP Streams, or even connect to the webserver using socket functions and then generate your requests.
Personally I often use cURL because it's very flexible and you can work with cookies easily.
Php curl manual is a good starting point.
Following is an example of the usage of curl in php on Stackoverflow:
Send json post using php
The data set in an xml file:
$post="<?xml version="1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>
<message xmlns=\"url\" >
<username>".$username."</username>
<password>".$password."</password>
<status date=\"2010-11-05 14:44:10+02\"/>
<body content-type=\"text/plain\">Noobligatory text</body>
</message>";
$url = "a-url-to-send-the-data";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 6);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);