posting name value pairs to an URL using curl - php

Question

I have signed up with a web based short messaging service to send text messages to confirm webform submissions. I am using CURL and my PHP code is as follows
$url = "http://www.mysmservice.co.uk/smsgateway/sendmsg.aspx?";
$param = "username=" . $username . "&password=" . $password . "&to=" . $diner_mobile . "&text=";
$smsmessage = "Hello, your table booking for " . $bookingdate . " at " . $booking_time . " is confirmed " , " Myrestaurant";
$ch = curl_init() or die(curl_error());
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$param);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PORT, 80);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$data1=curl_exec($ch) or die(curl_error());
curl_close($ch);
But it doesn't seem to be posting anything to the URL (mysmsservice tells me that the logs don't indicate any incoming requests). However the service work if I visit the following URL and replace the appropriate variables.
http://www.mysmsservice.co.uk/smsgateway/sendmsg.aspx?username=MyUsername &password=MyPassword&to=44771012345,44771054321&text=TheMessage
Not sure if I am using the CURL calls properly. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you're saying that it works if you visit the page with all parameters entered directly in the address bar (as GET parameters) then it means that you don't need to make a POST call.
In that case you don't even need to use cURL:
$base = 'http://www.mysmservice.co.uk/smsgateway/sendmsg.aspx';
$params = array(
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password,
'to' => $diner_mobile,
'text' => 'Your booking has been confirmed',
);
$url = sprintf('%s?%s', $base, http_build_query($params));
$response = file_get_contents($url);
If you do, however, need to use POST, this should work:
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curl, array(
CURLOPT_URL => $base,
CURLOPT_POST => 1,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $params,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => 0, // to avoid SSL issues if you need to fetch from https
CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => 0, // same ^
));
$response = curl_exec($curl);
Note: I haven't tested the code obviously but it's how I usually make cURL requests.

Answer 2

Perhaps the SMS service says that there was no valid requests when the message is missing. If you look at your code here:
$param = "username=" . $username . "&password=" . $password . "&to=" . $diner_mobile . "&text=";
You're never adding the message to the $param. You build it in the variable $smsmessage, though. You should modify your code to be this:
$smsmessage = "Hello, your table booking for " . $bookingdate . " at " . $booking_time . " is confirmed, " . " Myrestaurant";
$param = "username=" . $username . "&password=" . $password . "&to=" . $diner_mobile . "&text=" . $smsmessage;