I need to do what Postman does in PHP - php

Question

Postman is an API testing interface that I can use to make my specific API call successfully. I'm trying to do the same thing in PHP using CURL, but am having an issue with the way the API expects the format...
Let's say my URL is /post. The only variable after /post is "auth=asdf1234etc", and then XML data. So using postman I put
/post?auth=asdf1234etc
That goes in the URL section, and it has a raw XML data post section, where I put My XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><usageReports><usageReport></usageReport></usageReports>
My problem is that the XML is not a variable, where asdf1234etc is the value of the key auth, my XML is a value with no key -- so I don't know how to make the post using CURL.
Here's my PHP that doesn't work -- I get 401 unauthorized because the program thinks everything after ?auth="..." is the auth token. But it also doesn't work if I put an & after the auth token, because after an & I would have to do key=value, where I don't have a key.
$URL = "/post?auth=asdf1234etc";
$usage_report = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><usageReports><usageReport></usageReport></usageReports>';
$fields = array("Host" => "/post",
"Content-type" => "application/xml",
"Content-length" => strlen($usage_report),
"data" => $usage_report);//note that my xml is not a variable and I don't expect this specific line to work.
$fields_string = "&";
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) { $fields_string .= $key.'='.$value.'&'; }
rtrim($fields_string,'&');
//open connection
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $URL);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $fields);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields_string);
//execute post
$result = curl_exec($ch);
//close connection
curl_close($ch);
$array_data = json_decode(json_encode(simplexml_load_string($result)), true);
//view response
echo "\n\n";
print_r($array_data);
echo "\n";
What would be really helpful is if postman had an output that was a literal URL with everything in it, post URL base + authtoken + the XML -- because I can do it in postman(200 OK), just can't get the PHP to do the same.
I turned on CURLOPT_VERBOSE, and here might be some useful information:
POST /post?asdf123etc HTTP/1.1
Host: hidden.domain.com
Accept: */*
Content-Length: 335 //Why 335? strlen($usage_report) is 248?
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded //why is it changing from application/xml to this?
-it’s not a certificate issue
-it’s not a connection to host issue
-it’s kindof an auth issue, because it thinks that everything after ? is the auth token
-it’s an interesting problem because I can’t set the xml to a key in the fields array
-the xml constructed and urls I use work when using postman
-not an issue of xml format
p.s. if you think you've found a duplicate, make sure they are also asking what to do when POSTing XML that isn't a httpheader. (not something like this)

Answer 1

Remove these lines from your code:
$fields = array("Host" => "/post",
"Content-type" => "application/xml",
"Content-length" => strlen($usage_report),
"data" => $usage_report);//note that my xml is not a variable and I don't expect this specific line to work.
$fields_string = "&";
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) { $fields_string .= $key.'='.$value.'&'; }
rtrim($fields_string,'&');
Now, first fix your xml string. You didn't escape the quotes from your xml. So use this one:
$usage_report = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><usageReports><usageReport></usageReport></usageReports>';
Replace these two curl options with your existing one. Here its posting XML data:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("Content-type: application/xml")); // or text/xml
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $usage_report);
Your verbose output says you have used a proper url. But still to double check, make sure the url is correct. Currently its using URI instead of URL in your code:
$URL = "/post?auth=asdf1234etc";

Answer 2

You can get postman code for all languages and use it:
for example for your question you can copy the php-guzzle code easily and use it.
On the right side of the page, there is a button to show the code.
in the below photo, you can find it.
#postman #PHP #Guzzle #Laravel