I have a PHP script that syncs data with a third party service, and I would like to, if possible, replace nuSOAP with cURL as I have heard cURL is faster. The web service I am calling just takes simple HTTP post and returns it, so the cURL parameters shouldn't be too involved.
I need to pass 4 things, a user id, password, organization id, and the name of the web service to receive data from.
Which part of the cURL options do I pass them? I was trying to pass them in the header, but I am not sure if that is correct. I kept receiving 'Bad Request (Invalid Number)' error.
Edit: I am setting the HTTPHEADER but it looks like its still setting it to text/html.
Since, i have a thought that you have some basic understanding of cURL. I am giving you some shallow information.
If you are just posting some information to a page make use of
curl_setopt($agent, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($agent, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_data);
where $post_data will be the information you post to the page , something like
$post_data="name=stanley&feedback=good";
Or
If you are trying to make an authentication to a page, Just use
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC);
curl_setopt(CURLOPT_USERPWD, '[username]:[password]');
If you say 'The web service I am calling just takes simple HTTP post', assuming it doesn't use SOAP, you would do it by:
curl_setopt($handle,CURLOPT_POST,true);
curl_setopt($handle,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,array(
'user_id' => 'user',
'password' => 'pass' //etc, all the key/value pairs you need.
));
However, if it is a SOAP service, you would have to make a SOAP request, and which for it would take we cannot tell you without a WSDL. Any of the PHP XML packages would do to create it, possibly for simple things even normal string manipulation.
A help in the built-in soapclient (not nusoap) would be to do a request with SOAPClient and just examine the output of __getLastRequest().
Related
My code makes a curl request to an API that converts image formats e.g. png to jpg.
The API documentation offers a callback from the API which, when the conversion is finished, will send a GET request to a url on my server (hosted, not localhost). I provide this url to the API with the key/value pair:
"callback" => "12coins.net/cc_callback.php"
Unfortunately the API never calls back. Are my curl_setopt parameters wrong or what could be the problem?
$ch_start_process = curl_init();
$start_process_data = array(
"callback" => "https://12coins.com/cc_callback.php",
"input" => "download",
"file" => "https://12coins.com/photo_file.png",//the image I want converted
"tag" => "tag - unused for now",
"outputformat" => "jpg");
$process_url = "https:".$url_from_create;//prepend https to construct a valid endpoint.
//$url_from_create is a url returned by the API to a request immediately prior to this one
curl_setopt($ch_start_process, CURLOPT_URL, $process_url);
curl_setopt($ch_start_process, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query ($start_process_data));
curl_setopt($ch_start_process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch_start_process, CURLOPT_IPRESOLVE, CURL_IPRESOLVE_V4 );
$start_response=curl_exec($ch_start_process);//assign return value of curl_exec()
This is the script on my (remote) server 12coins.net/cc_callback.php to which the API should call back but doesn't:
<?php
header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *');
echo 'cc_callback has been called';
echo 'The GET request from CloudConvert is: '. $_GET;
?>
The API does in fact make a call back. It was just that with the code as shown in cc_callback.php there was no way for me to detect the callback. I had assumed that the echo statements would allow me to see the API's response in the (Chrome) network tab of my brower's dev tools. But of course the echo statements echo to the client that 'called' it with a GET request. In this case, that client is the API and not my browser/html page.
Realising this, I was then easily able to check that it had worked all along by adding
mail(myemailaddress#gmail.com, 'This is the url returned to the callback',$GET[url]); to my php script (shown in the question). This sent me an email when I sent an image to the API for processing and thus confirmed that the API was making the call back..
The curl code in the question is good. It makes a successful request to the API.
Lastly, the curl code is for a request to the CloudConvert API, version 1. There is a version 2 but the code above is not good for that. Also, there's an earlier curl request which must be used in conjunction with the one above which I'll post later for the sake of completeness.
I am creating a PHP package that I want anyone to be able to use.
I've not done any PHP dev in a few years and I'm unfamiliar with pear and pecl.
The first part of my question is related to Pecl and Pear:
It seems to me that Pear and pecl are updating my computer, rather than doing anything to my code base, which leads me to the assumption that anything I do with them will also need to be duplicated by anyone wanting to use my package. Is that correct?
The 2nd part of my question is specific, I just want to do a simple HTTP (POST) request, and ideally I'd like to do it without any config required by those who use my package.
These are options I'm considering :
HTTPRequest seems like the perfect option, but it says "Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'HttpRequest' not found" when I try and use it out of the box, and when I follow these instructions for installing it I get, "autoheader: error: AC_CONFIG_HEADERS not found in configure.in
ERROR: `phpize' failed" -- I don't want to debug something crazy like that in order to do a simple HTTP request, nor do I want someone using my package to have to struggle through something like that.
I've used HTTP_Request2 via a pear install and it works for me, but there is nothing added to my codebase at all, so presumably this will break for someone trying to use my package unless they follow the same install steps?
I know that I can use CURL but the syntax for that seems way over the top for such a simple action (I want my code to be really easy to read)
I guess I can use file_get_contents() .. is that the best option?
and perhaps I'll phrase the 2nd part of my question as :
Is there an approach that is considered best practice for (1) doing a HTTP request in PHP, and (2) for creating a package that is able to be easily used by anyone?
This really depends on what you need your request for. While it can be daunting when first learning it, I prefer to use cURL requests most of the time unless all I need to do is query the page with no headers. It becomes pretty readable once you get used to the syntax and the various options in my opinion. When all I need to do is query a page with no headers, I will usually use file_get_contents as this is a lot nicer looking and simpler. I also think most PHP developers can agree with me on this standpoint. I recommend using cURL requests as, when you need to set headers, they're very organized and more popular than messing with file_get_contents.
EDIT
When learning how to do cURL in PHP, the list of options on the documentation page is your friend! http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php
Here's an example of a simple POST request using PHP that will return the response text:
$data = array("arg1" => "val1", "arg2" => true); // POST data included in your query
$ch = curl_init("http://example.com"); // Set url to query
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST"); // Send via POST
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($data)); // Set POST data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); // Return response text
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); // send POST data as form data
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
I have been asked to deal with web hook concept. I am very new to this concept and i will need your help. I was asked to provide a URL to a company so they can send json data from their website.
So far i found this :
// Initiate curl
$ch = curl_init();
// Disable SSL verification
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
// Will return the response, if false it print the response
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
// Set the url
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
// Execute
$result=curl_exec($ch);
// Closing
curl_close($ch);
// Will dump a beauty json :3
var_dump(json_decode($result, true));
so is URL same as this PHP file? I am really confused. Thank You
Update: I have created an article to help with this
You don't need to use curl for a HubSpot webhook, the webhook should trigger some kind of action on your server and receive posted data ready for massaging and manipulating. A webhook could be, when a contact fills out a form or completes a specific action within HubSpot and you push that data to your custom script on a stand alone server. You should start with how to handle JSON data in a POST request. http://edwin.baculsoft.com/2011/12/how-to-handle-json-post-request-using-php/
That article should help out a bit...
Since you don't normally know what that posted data from HubSpot looks like just yet, you can use a service like requestbin to view the data that is being posted.. Note: they might have a cap on the amount of JSON it can handle in the request so you might need to find another service that gives you the complete JSON data or create a script on your server that saves the request to a file. For requestbin, you would create a workflow in hubspot with the action being a webhook and set the type to post and the url to the url that you received when creating a new requestbin.
Once you know what the JSON data structure is that is coming into your server, you can start to go to work on manipulating that data.
It's hard to be sure from the info you are providing, but you are probably coming at this the wrong way around.
You probably need to write a php script that will be the target of a webhook. Here is a post that should get you started:
Catching json data from hubspot webhook
I'm trying to use a web service REST API for which I need to add a parameter for authorization (with the appropriate key, of course) to get a XML result. I'm developing in PHP. How can I add a parameter to the request header in such a situation?
Edit: The way I'm doing the request right now is $xml = simplexml_load_file($query_string);
Are you using curl? (recommended)
I assume that you are using curl to do these requests towards the REST API, if you aren't; use it.
When using curl you can add a custom header by calling curl_setopt with the appropriate parameters, such as in below.
curl_setopt (
$curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
array ('Authentication-Key: foobar')
); // make curl send a HTTP header named 'Authentication-key'
// with the value 'foobar'
Documentation:
PHP: cURL - Manual
PHP: curl_setopt - Manual
Are you using file_get_contents or similar?
This method is not recommended, though it is functional.
Note: allow_url_fopen needs to be enabled for file_get_contents to be able to access resources over HTTP.
If you'd like to add a custom header to such request you'll need to create yourself a valid stream context, as in the below snippet:
$context_options = array(
'http' =>array (
'method' => 'GET',
'header' => 'Authentication-Key'
)
);
$context = stream_context_create ($context_options);
$response = file_get_contents (
'http://www.stackoverflow.com', false, $context_options
);
Documentation:
PHP: file_get_contents - Manual
PHP: stream_context_create - Manual
PHP: Runtime Configuration, allow_url_fopen
I'm using neither of the above solutions, what should I do?
[Post OP EDIT]
My recommendation is to fetch the data using curl and then pass it off to the parser in question when all the data is received. Separate data fetching from the processing of the returned data.
[/Post OP EDIT]
When you use $xml = simplexml_load_file($query_string);, the PHP interpreter invokes it's wrapper over fopen to open the contents of a file located at $query_string. If $query_string is a remote file, the PHP interpreter opens a stream to that remote URL and retrieves the contents of the file there (if the HTTP response code 200 OK). It uses the default stream context to do that.
There is a way to alter the headers sent by altering that stream context, however, in most cases, this is a bad idea. You're relying on PHP to always open all files, local or remote, using a function that was meant to take a local file name only. Not only is it a security problem but it also could be the source of a bug that is very hard to track down.
Instead, consider splitting the loading of the remote content using cURL (checking the returned HTTP status code and other sanity checks) and then parsing that content into a SimpleXMLElement object to use. When you use cURL, you can set any headers you want to send with the request by invoking something similar to curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('HeaderName' => 'value');
Hope this helps.
Actually, it's gotten so messy that I'm not even sure curl is the culprit. So, here's the php:
$creds = array(
'pw' => "xxxx",
'login' => "user"
);
$login_url = "https://www.example.net/login-form"; //action value in real form.
$loginpage = curl_init();
curl_setopt($loginpage, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($loginpage, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($loginpage, CURLOPT_URL, $login_url);
curl_setopt($loginpage, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($loginpage, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $creds);
$response = curl_exec($loginpage);
echo $response;
I get the headers (which match the headers of a normal, successful request), followed by the login page (I'm guessing curl captured this due to a redirect) which has an error to the effect of "Bad contact type".
I thought the problem was that the request had the host set to the requesting server, not the remote server, but then I noticed (in Firebug), that the request is sent as GET, not POST.
If I copy the login site's form, strip it down to just the form elements with values, and put the full URL for the action, it works just great. So I would think this isn't a security issue where the login request has to originate on the same server, etc. (I even get rid of the empty hidden values and all of the JS which set some of the other cookies).
Then again, I get confused pretty quickly.
Any ideas why it's showing up as GET, or why it's not working, for that matter?
When troubleshooting the entire class of PHP-cURL-related problems, you simply have to turn on CURLOPT_VERBOSE and give CURLOPT_STDERR a file handle.
tail -f your file, compare the headers and response to the ones you see in Firebug, and the problem should become clear.
The request is made from the server, and will not show up in Firebug. (You probably confused it with another request by your browser). Use wireshark to find out what really happens. You are not setting CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION; redirects should not be followed.
Summarizing: Guess less, post more. Link to a pcap dump, and we will be able to tell exactly what you're doing wrong; or post the exact output of the php script, and we might.
The shown code does a multipart formpost (since you pass a hash array to the POSTFIELDS option), which probably is not what the target server expects.
try throwing in a print_r(curl_getinfo($loginpage)) at the end, see what the header data it sent back as.
also, if your trying to fake that your logging in from their site, your going to want to make sure your sending the correct referrer with your post, so that they "think" you were on the website when you sent it.