Posting a JSON object to a REST API using PHP - php

Question

I have found a couple of helpful links on stackoverflow but they haven't helped me complete my task because I am a complete beginner in trying to write PHP or use curl etc.
Send json post using php
Posting JSON data to API using CURL
I have been using Postman in Chrome to test API calls but I now want to put together a demo system on my Apache web server.
Does anyone have an example of a PHP webform posting to a json Object to a REST API?
Here is an example of what I want to send:
<?php
$url = "https://api.url/api/v1//accounts/create";
$jdata = json_encode($data);
$data = [{
"status": "active",
"username": ["uname"],
"password": ["pword"],
"attributes": {
"forenames": ["fname"],
"surname": ["lname"],
"emailAddress": ["email"]
},
}]
?>
Any advice would be fantastic. Like I said, I am new to curl and php, am unfamiliar with the array approach mentioned in the other articles and the ["info"] elements should be populated with the information filled in on my webform.
I hope I have been concise and explanitory but please let me know if you need anymore information.
Snook

Answer 1

Try something like the following, modifying steps 1 and 2 accordingly:
function sendRequest($data,$url)
{
$postdata = http_build_query(array('data'=>$data));
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded \r\n",
//"X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest \r\n".
//"curl/7.9.8 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl 7.9.8 (OpenSSL 0.9.6b) (ipv6 enabled)\r\n",
'content' => $postdata,
'ignore_errors' => true,
'timeout' => 10,
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
return file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
}
// 1.- add your json
$data = '[{
"status" : "active",
"username" : ["uname"],
"password" : ["pword"],
"attributes" : {
"forenames" : ["fname"],
"surname" : ["lname"],
"emailAddress": ["email"]
},
}]';
// 2.- add api endpoint
$url= "https://api.url/api/v1//accounts/create";
// 3.- fire
$result = sendRequest($data,$url);
// 4.- dump result
echo $result;
die();
Good luck!!