cURL POST to REST Service - php

Question

I am trying to post to a REST service using PHP cURL but I'm after running into a bit of difficulty (this being that I've never used cURL before!!).
I've put together this code:
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
if ($result == "00")
{
$url = 'http://127.0.0.1/xxxxxx/AccountCreator.ashx'; /*I've tried it a combination of ways just to see which might work */
$curl_post_data = array(
'companyName' =>urlencode($companyName),
'mainContact' =>urlencode($mainContact),
'telephone1' =>urlencode($telephone1),
'email' => urlencode($email),
'contact2' => urlencode($contact2),
'telephone2' => urlencode($telephone2)
'email2' => urlencode($email2);
'package' => urlencode($package)
);
foreach($curl_post_data as $key=>$value) {$fields_string .=$key. '=' .$value.'&';
}
rtrim($fields_string, '&');
die("Test: ".$fields_string);
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT, $url);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, count($curl_post_data));
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields_string);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
Following this, my code sends an email and performs an IF statement. I know this works okay, I only started running into trouble when I tried to insert this cURL request.
I've tried this however it doesn't run. As I am integrating with payment partners, it just says:
Your transaction has been successful but there was a problem connecting back to the merchant's web site. Please contact the merchant and advise them that you received this error message. Thank you.
The exact error that was received was a HTTP 500 error.
Thanks.

Answer 1

foreach($curl_post_data as $key=>value) {$fields_string .=$key. '=' .value.'&';
value here is missing a dollar i guess
foreach($curl_post_data as $key => $value) {$fields_string .=$key. '=' .$value.'&';
have you tried die($fields_string); to see what are you actually sending to the merchant?

Answer 2

First of all: are you testing locally? Because that IP you're using is not a valid server address.
The constant to set the URL is called CURLOPT_URL:
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
Also CURLOPT_POST must be true or false ( http://php.net/curl_setopt ), not a number (except for 1 maybe):
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
Here's some POST sample code: PHP + curl, HTTP POST sample code?

Answer 3

It would be best if you can provide your PHP version.
As of PHP 5, some handy functions are bundled in the core instead of separate PECL libraries.
// If you are working with normal HTTP requests, simply do this.
$curl_post_data = http_build_query($curl_post_data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT, $url);
// This is a boolean option, although passing non-zero integer
// will be type-casted to TRUE, count() is not the proper way.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $curl_post_data);
// If you really want the next statement be meaningful, do this.
// Otherwise your HTTP response will be passed directly into
// the output buffer.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
Keep in mind that CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS in PHP supports file uploads, by adding a '#' character followed by a full file path as the value.
You don't want to call http_build_query() on such situations.
Sample code for file upload
$curl_post_data = array('file1' => '#/home/user/files_to_be_uploaded');
While you can optionally specify MIME type, see the documentation for more information.
As said, check your PHP version first. This feature only works in PHP 5, AFAIK there are companies still hosting PHP 4.x in their servers.

Answer 4

Have a look at http_build_query