sending rest request via php - php

Question

I am trying to send a REST request. The example I have been given by the system docs is this:
$ curl --digest -u admin:<passwd> http://1.2.3.4/r/users/12345/calls/recent
{"data": [
{"state_msg": "Finished",
"code": 200,
"dst_codecs": "PCMU,PCMA,iLBC,telephone-event",
"src_codecs": "PCMU,PCMA,telephone-event,iLBC",
"pid": 1250018007,
"url": "\/r\/users\/12345\/calls\/1250018007:16739",
[...]
}
[...]
]}
what is this example trying to tell me? what is the data information there? Is that what i need to send. If so, how would i send it? I have read this post: Call a REST API in PHP but I am still unsure of how to structure my call. would it be something like this?
$data = array('state_msg' => 'state_msg','code'=>'200'.....);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "admin:<password>");
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://1.2.3.4/r/users/12345/calls/recent");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

Answer 1

I start with the beginning of the example:
$ curl
The $ sign denotes a unix shell prompt with standard user privileges.
Then a space separates the command which is curl here.
Each command has (normally) a manual page, you get it with the man command:
$ man curl
That should explain all the rest to you, as those man-pages explain all of the commands switches and options.
If you don't have such a shell prompt at hand and you do not like to consider installing one, many commands have their man pages as well in the internet. Here for curl:
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html
After you've understood what that concrete command does, you just look-up the related options in the PHP manual on the curl_setopt page. How this works is demonstrated in the following example:
Convert command line cURL to PHP cURL
Example:
$ curl --digest -u admin:<passwd> http://1.2.3.4/r/users/12345/calls/recent
########
This switch relates to the CURLAUTH_DIGEST value of the CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH setting.
$handle = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt_array($handle, [
...
CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH => CURLAUTH_DIGEST, // --digest
...
]);
Compare with the Curl C-API which is just wrapped by PHP:
How to post http request using digest authentication with libcurl