fsockopen will not send post data - php

Question

SOLVED: Issue was in Content-type. Should have been
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Helping link: http://www.bradino.com/php/empty-post-array/
I cannot seem to get POST data to send. I've combed over this method for a while now and each time I run a test, the $_POST array is empty.
$output = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
$params = "method=updateOrder&xml=".$output;
$response = Rest::Post("example.com", 80, "/resource/path.php", $params);
Above is another method I call statically which creates the HttpRequest with the desired method. Below is the method that gets sub-called and passed the same data but including the method name. IE: POST.
private static function httpRequest($host, $port, $method, $path, $params)
{
//Check method
if(empty($method))
$method = "GET";
$method = strtoupper($method);
//Port
if(empty($port))
$port = 80;
//Build Querystring
$data = "";
if(!empty($params) && $method == "GET")
foreach($params as $name => $value)
{
$data .= $name . "=" . urlencode($value) . "&";
}
if($method == "GET" && !empty($data))
$path .= "?" . $data;
//connection
$socket = fsockopen($host, $port);
if(!$socket)
die("Socket failed, no connection.");
//Write Data and headers to stream
fputs($socket, $method ." ". $path . " HTTP/1.1\r\n");
fputs($socket, "Host: " . $host . "\r\n");
if($method === "POST")
{
fputs($socket, "Content-type: text/xml\r\n");
fputs($socket, "Content-length: " . strlen($params) . "\r\n");
}
fputs($socket, "Connection: close\r\n\r\n");
//Write body
if($method === "POST")
fputs($socket, $params);
//Gets headers
$responseHeader = "";
do
{
$responseHeader .= fgets($socket, 1024);
}
while(strpos($responseHeader, "\r\n\r\n") === false);
//Gets body
$responseBody = "";
while(!feof($socket))
$responseBody .= fgets($socket, 1024);
//Done & return
fclose($socket);
return array(0=>$responseHeader, 1=>$responseBody);
}

Answer 1

You should consider using the built-in cURL library.
function httpRequest($host, $port = 80, $method = 'GET', $path = '/', $params = null)
{
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
if ( ! empty($port) )
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PORT, $port);
if ( ! empty($method) && $method == 'POST' )
{
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $host . ( ! empty($path) ? $path : '/' ));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
if ( ! empty($params) )
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $params);
}
else
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $host . ( ! empty($path) ? $path : '/' ) . ( ! empty($params) ? '?' . $params : null ));
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return explode("\r\n\r\n", $result, 2);
}
The function above will return an array containing the headers and the body.

Answer 2

Does this help?
Change
fputs($socket, "Content-type: text/xml\r\n");
to
fputs($socket, "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n");