Using PHP to post an XML buffer to an HTTPS page - php

Question

I am using php 5.2.9
I have an XML buffer which I need to post to some HTTPS URL.
What is the correct way of doing that?
I see various examples on the web, and none of them seem to be working for me:
Some define the cURL headers like so:
$headers = array(
"POST " . $page . " HTTP/1.0",
"Content-type: text/xml;charset=\"utf-8\"",
"Accept: text/xml",
"Cache-Control: no-cache",
"Pragma: no-cache",
"SOAPAction: \"run\"",
"Content-length: ".strlen($buffer),
);
Where $page holds the request on the server and $buffer contains the XML data.
The actual $buffer is sent as the value as:
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $buffer);
But I don't see how this can work, as CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS expects its value to be an array and not a buffer.
Then I saw several ways of configuring the SSL aspects of the call:
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION,3);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
Are all of these needed? I saw examples where the following was also set:
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC );
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "username:password");
Can someone post a complete working example that explains what needs to be done in order to post an XML buffer using cURL to an HTTP URL?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

A few points:
Don't specify the request method with the other headers. Use CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST for that.
To send the data you have two options. You can either implement a stream wrapper that reads from $buffer that you then open with fopen and give as a CURLOPT_INFILE option (of course, if the XML is on disk, you can open it directly with fopen), or, more simply, you define a CURLOPT_READFUNCTION callback.
The verify peer part is only necessary if you want to check the validity of the server's certificate (you ought to).
Basic authentication is necessary if the server requires basic authentication. Only you can know that.