PHP - Posting JSON via file_get_contents - php

Question

I am trying to POST JSON content to a remote REST endpoint, however the 'content' value appears to be empty on delivery. All other headers etc are being received correctly, and the web service tests successfully with a browser based test client.
Is there a problem with my syntax below where I specify the 'content' field?
$data = array("username" => "duser", "firstname" => "Demo", "surname" => "User", "email" => "example#example.com");
$data_string = json_encode($data);
$result = file_get_contents('http://test.com/api/user/create', null, stream_context_create(array(
'http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => array('Content-Type: application/json'."\r\n"
. 'Authorization: username:key'."\r\n"
. 'Content-Length: ' . strlen($data_string) . "\r\n"),
'content' => $data_string)
)
));
echo $result;

Answer 1

This is the code I always use and it looks pretty similar (though this is of course for x-www-form-urlencoded).
Perhaps your username:key needs to be base64_encode'd.
function file_post_contents($url, $data, $username = null, $password = null)
{
$postdata = http_build_query($data);
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'content' => $postdata
)
);
if($username && $password)
{
$opts['http']['header'] .= ("Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password"));
}
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
return file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
}

Answer 2

The question was about json, why the accepted answer is about x-www-form?
Json has many cool stuff to struggle about, like utf8_encode
function my_utf8_encode(array $in): array
{
foreach ($in as $key => $record) {
if (is_array($record)) {
$in[$key] = my_utf8_encode($record);
} else {
$in[$key] = utf8_encode($record);
}
}
return $in;
}
function file_post_contents(string $url, array $data, string $username = null, string $password = null)
{
$data = my_utf8_encode($data);
$postdata = json_encode($data);
if (is_null($postdata)) {
throw new \Exception('decoding params');
}
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-type: application/json',
'content' => $postdata
)
);
if (!is_null($username) && !is_null($password)) {
$opts['http']['header'] .= "Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password");
}
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
try {
$response = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
} catch (\ErrorException $ex) {
throw new \Exception($ex->getMessage(), $ex->getCode(), $ex->getPrevious());
}
if ($response === false) {
throw new \Exception();
}
return $response;
}

Answer 3

The earlier response of
function file_post_contents($url, $data, $username = null, $password = null) {
$postdata = http_build_query($data);
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'content' => $postdata
)
);
if($username && $password)
{
$opts['http']['header'] = ("Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password"));
}
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
return file_get_contents($url, false, $context);}
is incorrect. This function works sometimes, but it is inaccurate and will fail if you're not using the Content-type of application/x-www-form-urlencoded and you pass in a username and password.
It's working for the writer because application/x-www-form-urlencoded is the default Content-type, but his handling of the username and password is overwriting the earlier declaration of content type.
Here is the corrected function:
function file_post_contents($url, $data, $username = null, $password = null){
$postdata = http_build_query($data);
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
'content' => $postdata
)
);
if($username && $password)
{
$opts['http']['header'] .= ("Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password")); // .= to append to the header array element
}
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
return file_get_contents($url, false, $context);}
Note the line:
$opts['http']['header' .= (dot equals to append to the array element.)