How to capture a plain copy of my HTTP request - php

Question

I am trying to communicate with anREST API using cURL and PHP. But, I am getting an issue from the API and I need to be able to see my HTTP request in plain text where I can analyses it and correct it.
I tried the following to write my request to a file
$file = fopen('request.txt', 'w');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_STDERR, $file);
But this does not show me the JSON data.
Here is what I get in the request.txt file
* Hostname servername was found in DNS cache
* Trying INTERNAL IP...
* Connected to servername (INTERNAL IP) port 8018 (#0)
> PUT /icws/1163386002/messaging/subscriptions/queues/blahblah HTTP/1.1
Host: servername:8018
Accept: */*
ININ-ICWS-CSRF-Token: WAhtYWxoYXlla1dBY2GHSDMNDFtjMDcwZmIyYy1mguc4LTQ3YjEtODgzMy1iOTBkM2ZhYWHfoyNmYTlYCjEwLjAuNC4xNjA=
ININ-ICWS-Session-ID: 1163386002
Cookie: icws_1163386002=232sggsdfgdabe-404c-8d8c-12345dfgdfg
Content-Length: 156
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
* upload completely sent off: 156 out of 156 bytes
< HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
< Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate
< Pragma: no-cache
< Expires: 0
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
< Content-Type: application/vnd.inin.icws+JSON; charset=utf-8
< Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 17:52:52 GMT
< Server: HttpPluginHost
< Content-Length: 90
<
* Connection #0 to host servername left intact
I would like to see the JSON string in plain text.
Here is how I am doing my cURL call using PHP
private function _processRequest($method, $uri, $data = false, $header = NULL, &$httpRespond = array(), &$httpCode = NULL)
{
$ch = curl_init();
$url = $this->_baseURL . $uri;
if(
($method == 'POST' || $method == 'PUT')
&& $data
){
$jsonString = json_encode( $data );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $jsonString );
}
if($method == 'POST'){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
} elseif( $method == 'PUT'){
//curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PUT, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'PUT');
} else {
if ($data){
$url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, http_build_query($data));
}
}
//disable the use of cached connection
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT, true);
//return the respond from the API
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
//return the HEADER respond from the API
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
//add custom headers
if(!empty($header)){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header);
}
//enable SSL
if( $this->_protocol == 'https' ){
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CAINFO, $this->_cainfo);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, true);
}
//set the URL
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
$file = fopen('request.txt', 'w');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_STDERR, $file);
$respond = curl_exec($ch);
//throw cURL exception
if($respond === false){
$errorNo = curl_errno($ch);
$errorMessage = curl_error($ch);
throw new ApiException($errorMessage, $errorNo);
}
list($header, $body) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $respond, 2);
$httpRespond = $this->_http_parse_headers($header);
$httpCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
$result = json_decode($body, true);
return $result;
}
How do I see the entire HTTP request in a plain text?

Answer 1

You can use Fiddler (http://www.telerik.com/fiddler) to see your complete request/response in plain text and to test your REST API as well.
Also, you can use Wireshark (https://www.wireshark.org/) applying a HTTP filter.
My recommendation is Fiddler, I use it a lot to test and debug my REST API.
Hope this helps