POST JSON data via CURL and grabbing it - php

Question

I am trying to pass a json data as param for cURL POST. However, I am stuck at grabbing it and saving it on db.
cURL file:
$data = array("name" => "Hagrid", "age" => "36");
$data_string = json_encode($data);
$url = 'http://localhost/project/test_curl';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-Type: application/json')
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_string);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
//based on http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2011/posting-json-data-with-php-curl
test_curl file:
$order_info = $_POST; // this seems to not returning anything
//SAVE TO DB... saving empty...
What did I miss? Weew....

Answer 1

You are sending the data as raw JSON in the body, it will not populate the $_POST variable.
You need to do one of two things:
You can change the content type to one that will populate the $_POST array
You can read the raw body data.
I would recommend option two if you have control over both ends of the communication, as it will keep the request body size to a minimum and save bandwidth over time. (Edit: I didn't really emphasize here that the amount of bandwidth it will save is negligible, only a few bytes per request, this would only be a valid concern is very high traffic environments. However I still recommend option two because it is the cleanest way)
In your test_curl file, do this:
$fp = fopen('php://input', 'r');
$rawData = stream_get_contents($fp);
$postedJson = json_decode($rawData);
var_dump($postedJson);
If you want to populate the $_POST variable, you will need to change the way you send the data to the server:
$data = array (
'name' => 'Hagrid',
'age' => '36'
);
$bodyData = array (
'json' => json_encode($data)
);
$bodyStr = http_build_query($bodyData);
$url = 'http://localhost/project/test_curl';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'Content-Length: '.strlen($bodyStr)
));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $bodyStr);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
The raw, undecoded JSON will now be available in $_POST['json'].

Answer 2

Use following php function for posting data using php curl function in x-www-form-urlencoded format.
<?php
$bodyData = http_build_query($data); //for x-www-form-urlencoded
?>