Use curl in php script - php

Question

I'm trying to create a script that will delete all user properties for a particular individual. I'm able to use an api call to get the users' properties. And I'm trying use a delete api to remove each property. But I'm having an issue doing so. Below is the code:
$delete = "http://www.ourwiki.com/#api/DELETE:users/$user_id/properties/%s";
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlString);
foreach($xml->property as $property) {
$name = $property['name']; // the name is stored in the attribute
file_get_contents(sprintf($delete, $name));
}
I believe I need to use curl to perform the actual delete. Here is an example of that command (property=something):
curl -u username:password -X DELETE -i http://ourwiki.com/#api/users/=john_smith#ourwiki.com/properties/something
-u Provides external user authentication.
-X Specifies the HTTP request method.
-i Outputs the HTTP response headers. Useful for debugging.
Is this something that I can incorporate right into the existing script? Or is there something else I need to do? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
update:
<?php
$user_id="john_smith#ourwiki.com";
$url=('http://aaron:12345#192.168.245.133/#api/deki/users/=john_smith#ourwiki.com/properties');
$xmlString=file_get_contents($url);
$delete = "http://aaron:12345#192.168.245.133/#api/deki/DELETE:users/$user_id/properties/%s";
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlString);
function curl_fetch($url,$username,$password,$method='DELETE')
{
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, $method);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE); // returns output as a string instead of echoing it
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERPWD,"$username:$password"); // if your server requires basic auth do this
return curl_exec($ch);
}
foreach($xml->property as $property) {
$name = $property['name']; // the name is stored in the attribute
curl_fetch(sprintf($delete, $name),'aaron','12345');
}
?>

Answer 1

You can use php curl, or shell out to curl using exec.
If curl is already enabled on you web server, go with php curl. If you cant install php-curl copy a command line version of curl and you are good to go.
In php-curl to set the delete method do:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'DELETE');
edit
Something like this:
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.ourwiki.com/#api/whatever/url/you/want/or/need");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'DELETE');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE); // returns output as a string instead of echoing it
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERPWD,"$username:$password"); // if your server requires basic auth do this
$output = curl_exec($ch);
edit2
stick that above code in a function:
function curl_fetch($url,$username,$password,$method='DELETE')
{
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, $method);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE); // returns output as a string instead of echoing it
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERPWD,"$username:$password"); // if your server requires basic auth do this
return curl_exec($ch);
}
and replace the call to file_get_contents() in your script with the new function.
curl_fetch(sprintf($delete, $name),'aaron','12345');
Done.

Answer 2

looks like you are looking for the curl function calls in php, including curl_setopt

Answer 3

See: http://php.net/curl