Scrape data from AJAXREQUEST - php

Question

I would like to crab data from a website that uses an ajax request to load new data from the server into a DIV.
When I click on the button of the website, that will load new data into the website, I can see that the browser does only 1 POST request with the following post string:
AJAXREQUEST=_viewRoot&j_id376=j_id376&javax.faces.ViewState=j_id3&j_id376%3Aj_id382=j_id376%3Aj_id382&valueChanged=false&AJAX%3AEVENTS_COUNT=1&
When I do the above post request using php curl I don't get any useful data.
Does someone know how to crab data for this kind of request?
UPDATE1:
This is what I use in php:
$ch = curl_init ('http://www.website.com');
$post_string = 'AJAXREQUEST=_viewRoot&j_id376=j_id376&javax.faces.ViewState=j_id3&j_id376%3Aj_id382=j_id376%3Aj_id382&valueChanged=false&AJAX%3AEVENTS_COUNT=1&';
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 30);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_string);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $ckfile);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $ckfile);
$output = curl_exec ($ch);
I don't get any results, also no errors or messages.

Answer 1

Your problem probably isn't with your PHP code, its more likely with what you are actually sending to the server. I'm assuming you listed website.com as a place holder for whatever service you are trying to interact with, but since you haven't listed any of the information as to where your sending the request or what your getting back I'm assuming that what your posting to the server is simply being ignored because what your sending is invalid, or incomplete, or requires further POST/GET requests. Another possibility is that your attempting to POST to a service that requires an authenticated session (the POST variables you listed could include some sort of token to identify the session) which you have not established.
I would recommend that you first test your code on a simpler "controlled test case". Setup a basic web form that returns true or something when you POST a value to it. Test your code with the simpler case first to make sure your POST code works.
Then using a debugging tool such as LiveHTTPHeaders or Firebug record the entire POST/GET request interaction with the server. It might be a good idea to first try to "replay" this interaction with a debugging tool to prove that your methodology works. Then once you know exactly what you need to do from a high level, repeat this process in your PHP code.
There is not much other advice anyone can give you with the information you have given us.