How to POST an XML file using cURL on php? - php

Question

I am using a local server on my computer and i am trying to make 2 php scripts to send an xml file and receive it.
To send the xml file i use this code :
<?php
/*
* XML Sender/Client.
*/
// Get our XML. You can declare it here or even load a file.
$file = 'http://localhost/iPM/books.xml';
if(!$xml_builder = simplexml_load_file($file))
exit('Failed to open '.$file);
// We send XML via CURL using POST with a http header of text/xml.
$ch = curl_init();
// set URL and other appropriate options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost/iPM/receiver.php");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: text/xml'));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml_builder);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, 'http://localhost/iPM/receiver.php');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$ch_result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
// Print CURL result.
echo $ch_result;
?>
To receive the xml file i use this code :
<?php
/*
* XML Server.
*/
// We use php://input to get the raw $_POST results.
$xml_post = file_get_contents('php://input');
// If we receive data, save it.
if ($xml_post) {
$xml_file = 'received_xml_' . date('Y_m_d-H-i-s') . '.xml';
$fh = fopen($xml_file, 'w') or die();
fwrite($fh, $xml_post);
fclose($fh);
// Return, as we don't want to cause a loop by processing the code below.
return;
}
?>
When i run the post script i get this error :
Notice: Array to string conversion in C:\xampp\htdocs\iPM\main.php on line 17
which refers to line :
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml_builder);
which i dont know what exactly does. The xml file i receive is created but when i open it i get this :
XML Parsing Error: syntax error
Location: file:///C:/xampp/htdocs/iPM/received_xml_2013_01_14-01-06-09.xml
Line Number 1, Column 1:
I tried to comment this specific line as i thought the problem lies there but then when i run my post script i get this error :
Request entity too large!
The POST method does not allow the data transmitted, or the data volume exceeds the capacity limit.
If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 413
but the xml file is only 5kbs so this is not the problem.
Does anyone have any idea what i should do here? All i am trying to do is make a script to send an xml file and a script to receive it and save it as an xml.

Answer 1

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $foo) sets your request's body, the data to be posted. It expects $foo to be a set of key-value pairs provided either as an array:
$foo = array(
'foo' => 'some value',
'bar' => 2
);
or as a percent-encoded string:
$foo = 'foo=some%20value&bar=2'
Instead, you're providing $xml_builder variable which is a SimpleXMLElement object returned by simplexml_load_file($file).
Try this:
$postfields = array(
'xml' => $your_xml_as_string; // get it with file_get_contents() for example
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postfields);
Then on the receiving end:
$received_xml = $_POST['xml'];