Coop API - posting with PHP - php

Question

I'm trying to do a simple post to a web service using CURL and their API but I'm getting a 422 response. My code looks like:
include 'CurlRequest.php';
$secret_key = 'mykeyhere';
$group_id = 'group_id';
$postData = array(
'group_id' => $group_id,
'key' => $secret_key,
'status' => 'test'
);
$curl = new CurlRequest('http://coopapp.com/statuses/update.json');
$curl->exec(array(
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($postData)
));
I'm using an existing Curl Library to handle the posts. I'm sure it has something to do with the way I'm formatting the POST url (I've tried a bunch of different ways) or the way I'm posting the data.
Their docs are here: http://coopapp.com/api/statuses
Thanks!

Answer 1

Here's a quote from the api page
POST
/statuses/update.xml?group_id=#{group_id}&status=An%20encoded%20status&key=#{secret_key}
its supposed to be key not secret_key
$postData = array(
'group_id' => $group_id,
'key' => $secret_key,
'status' => 'test'
);

Answer 2

The solution was a missing content-type of 'application/json'.
Here's the working code:
include 'CurlRequest.php';
$key = 'mykeyhere';
$group_id = '1234';
$status = 'Awesome status update';
$curl = new CurlRequest('http://coopapp.com/statuses/update.xml?group_id=' . $group_id . '&key=' . $key);
$curl->exec(array(
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode(array('status' => $status)),
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => array("Content-Type: application/json")
));

Answer 3

The HTTP error seems odd for an API like this.
The Co-Op API doc is a bit... well.. confusing on the status update, as it talks about POSTing the data, but the example shows a query string. What you could do, is try putting the stuff in the query string, or not using CURL. PHP's file_get_contents is actually a usable HTTP client, if you pass it enough parameters. So try this:
$params = array(
'group_id' => $group_id,
'secret_key' => $secret_key,
'status' => 'test'
);
$context = stream_context_create(
array(
'http' => array(
'method' => 'POST'
))
);
file_get_contents("http://coopapp.com/statuses/update.json?" .
http_build_query($params), false, $context);
And if that doesn't work, rule out CURL errors, by doing the same thing without CURL:
$params = array(
'group_id' => $group_id,
'secret_key' => $secret_key,
'status' => 'test'
);
$context = stream_context_create(
array('http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => http_build_query($params)
))
);
file_get_contents("http://coopapp.com/statuses/update.json", false, $context);
Note that I haven't tested the code, so some error-checking/fixes might be needed.

Answer 4

I don't think you should json_decode() the POSTFIELDS data, should you? The response will be JSON, but the input is expected as POST fields. According to the manual:
The full data to post in a HTTP "POST" operation. To post a file, prepend a filename with # and use the full path. This can either be passed as a urlencoded string like 'para1=val1&para2=val2&...' or as an array with the field name as key and field data as value. If value is an array, the Content-Type header will be set to multipart/form-data.
this should work:
$curl = new CurlRequest('http://coopapp.com/statuses/update.json');
$curl->exec(array(
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $postData
));