How to make a post request without curl? - php

Question

Considering I don't want to use curl, which is a valid alternative to make a post request? Maybe Zend_http_client?
I just need the basic stuff (I need to request an url with only one post param)

Answer 1

You could use file_get_contents().
The PHP manual has a nice example here. This is just copy past from the manual:
$postdata = http_build_query(
array(
'var1' => 'some content',
'var2' => 'doh'
)
);
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'content' => $postdata
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$result = file_get_contents('http://example.com/submit.php', false, $context);

Answer 2

you can use stream_context_create and file_get_contents
<?php
$context_options = array (
'http' => array (
'method' => 'POST',
'header'=> "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"
. "Content-Length: " . strlen($data) . "\r\n",
'content' => $data
)
);
?>
$context = stream_context_create($context_options);
$result = file_get_contents('http://www.php.net', false, $context);

Answer 3

You can implement it yourself via sockets:
$url = parse_url(''); // url
$requestArray = array('var' => 'value');
$sock = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP);
socket_connect($sock, $url['host'], ((isset($url['port'])) ? $url['port'] : 80));
if (!$sock) {
throw new Exception('Connection could not be established');
}
$request = '';
if (!empty($requestArray)) {
foreach ($requestArray as $k => $v) {
if (is_array($v)) {
foreach($v as $v2) {
$request .= urlencode($k).'[]='.urlencode($v2).'&';
}
}
else {
$request .= urlencode($k).'='.urlencode($v).'&';
}
}
$request = substr($request,0,-1);
}
$data = "POST ".$url['path'].((!empty($url['query'])) ? '?'.$url['query'] : '')." HTTP/1.0\r\n"
."Host: ".$url['host']."\r\n"
."Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"
."User-Agent: PHP\r\n"
."Content-length: ".strlen($request)."\r\n"
."Connection: close\r\n\r\n"
.$request."\r\n\r\n";
socket_send($sock, $data, strlen($data), 0);
$result = '';
do {
$piece = socket_read($sock, 1024);
$result .= $piece;
}
while($piece != '');
socket_close($sock);
// TODO: Add Header Validation for 404, 403, 401, 500 etc.
echo $result;
Of course you have to change it to fill your needs or wrap it into a function.

Answer 4

The simplest way if you have PHP configured with pecl_http is:
$response = http_post_data($url, $post_params_string);
The function is documented on php.net:
Documentation http://php.net/manual/en/function.http-post-data.php
Install: http://php.net/manual/en/http.install.php
PECL also provides a well documented way to handle Cookies, Redirects, Authentication etc before the POST:
http://php.net/manual/en/http.request.options.php

Answer 5

If you are using the Zend Framework already you should try the Zend_Http_Client you mentioned:
$client = new Zend_Http_Client($host, array(
'maxredirects' => 3,
'timeout' => 30));
$client->setMethod(Zend_Http_Client::POST);
// You might need to set some headers here
$client->setParameterPost('key', 'value');
$response = $client->request();

Answer 6

RESTclient is a nice little app for this: http://code.google.com/p/rest-client/