posting json data with curl and failing - php

Question

I have this function here:
public static function call($action, array $args)
{
$post_args = array(
'action' => $action,
'args' => $args
);
$stream = json_encode($post_args);
$headers = array(
'Content-type: application/json',
'Accept: application/json',
'Expect:'
);
$userpwd = self::$_user.':'.sha1(sha1(self::$_pass));
$ch = curl_init();
$args = array(
CURLOPT_URL => self::$_url,
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => TRUE,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => TRUE,
CURLOPT_POST => TRUE,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $stream,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => $headers,
CURLOPT_USERPWD => $userpwd
);
curl_setopt_array($ch, $args);
$res = curl_exec($ch);
$data = json_decode($res, true);
if (isset($data) === TRUE
&& empty($data) === FALSE
) {
$res = $data;
}
return $res;
}//end call()
and at the URL where I'm posting, I'm just doing:
echo file_get_contents('php://input');
but getting nothing, even though I do post data. What could be the problem? I'm at a dead end.
Also, why do I need CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION set to TRUE when I'm just posting to a simple virtual host URL on my local machine, not doing any redirects.
EDIT:
tried redoing it with fopen like so:
public static function call($action, array $args)
{
$post_args = array(
'action' => $action,
'args' => $args
);
$stream = json_encode($post_args);
$userpwd = self::$_user.':'.sha1(sha1(self::$_pass));
$opts = array(
'http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => array(
"Authorization: Basic ".base64_encode($userpwd),
"Content-type: application/json"
),
'content' => $stream
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$res = '';
$fp = fopen(self::$_url, 'r', false, $context);
if($fp){
while (!feof($fp)){
$res .= fread($fp, 128);
}
}
return $res;
}//end call()
no success. The connection works with curl and with fopen, since I pass the status along with result (which is just the php://input stream). Any ideas?

Answer 1

Can you be sure about that curl_exec function ends successfully. Also, why don't you use fopen for this purpose. I have written a JSON RPC client and server. I'm sending requests with fopen, and it works perfect.
$httpRequestOptions =
array(
'http'=>array(
'method'=>'POST',
'header'=>'Content-type: application/json',
'content'=>$requestJSON
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($httpRequestOptions);
// send request
if($fileHandler = #fopen($serverURL, 'r', false, $context)){
I'm not writing the rest. You can use this code I have written.

Answer 2

Found out the problem.
I was calling http://localhost/api, since I thought that it would load the index.php automatically, and then I was going to change the default file name for the folder.
The problem was that I didn't add index.php at the end - I should've called http://localhost/api/index.php.
This way it worked with cURL and with fopen.
Any ideas how to call the API without revealing the filename?