How to get response using cURL in PHP

Question

I want to have a standalone PHP class where I want to have a function which calls an API through cURL and gets the response. Can someone help me in this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Just use the below piece of code to get the response from restful web service url, I use social mention url.

$response = get_web_page("http://socialmention.com/search?q=iphone+apps&f=json&t=microblogs&lang=fr");
$resArr = array();
$resArr = json_decode($response);
echo "<pre>"; print_r($resArr); echo "</pre>";

function get_web_page($url) {
    $options = array(
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,   // return web page
        CURLOPT_HEADER         => false,  // don't return headers
        CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,   // follow redirects
        CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS      => 10,     // stop after 10 redirects
        CURLOPT_ENCODING       => "",     // handle compressed
        CURLOPT_USERAGENT      => "test", // name of client
        CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER    => true,   // set referrer on redirect
        CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120,    // time-out on connect
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 120,    // time-out on response
    ); 

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt_array($ch, $options);

    $content  = curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);

    return $content;
}

Answer 2

The crux of the solution is setting

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true

then

$response = curl_exec($ch);

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER tells PHP to store the response in a variable instead of printing it to the page, so $response will contain your response. Here's your most basic working code (I think, didn't test it):

// init curl object        
$ch = curl_init();

// define options
$optArray = array(
    CURLOPT_URL => 'http://www.google.com',
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true
);

// apply those options
curl_setopt_array($ch, $optArray);

// execute request and get response
$result = curl_exec($ch);

Answer 3

If anyone else comes across this, I'm adding another answer to provide the response code or other information that might be needed in the "response".

http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-getinfo.php

// init curl object        
$ch = curl_init();

// define options
$optArray = array(
    CURLOPT_URL => 'http://www.google.com',
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true
);

// apply those options
curl_setopt_array($ch, $optArray);

// execute request and get response
$result = curl_exec($ch);

// also get the error and response code
$errors = curl_error($ch);
$response = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

curl_close($ch);

var_dump($errors);
var_dump($response);

Output:

string(0) ""
int(200)

// change www.google.com to www.googlebofus.co
string(42) "Could not resolve host: www.googlebofus.co"
int(0)

Answer 4

The ultimate curl php function:

function getURL($url,$fields=null,$method=null,$file=null){
    // author   = Ighor Toth <igtoth@gmail.com>
    // required:
    //      url     = include http or https 
    // optionals:
    //      fields  = must be array (e.g.: 'field1' => $field1, ...)
    //      method  = "GET", "POST"
    //      file    = if want to download a file, declare store location and file name (e.g.: /var/www/img.jpg, ...)
    // please crete 'cookies' dir to store local cookies if neeeded

    // do not modify below
    $useragent = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko';
    $timeout= 240;
    $dir = dirname(__FILE__);
    $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] ?? '127.0.0.1';
    $cookie_file    = $dir . '/cookies/' . md5($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']) . '.txt';
    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);    
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie_file);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie_file);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "" );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 10 );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $useragent);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, 'http://www.google.com/');
    if($file!=null){
        if (!curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $file)){ // Handle error
                die("curl setopt bit the dust: " . curl_error($ch));
        }
        //curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $file);
        $timeout= 3600;
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $timeout );
    if($fields!=null){
        $postvars = http_build_query($fields); // build the urlencoded data
        if($method=="POST"){
            // set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, count($fields));
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postvars);
        }
        if($method=="GET"){
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'GET');
            $url = $url.'?'.$postvars;
        }
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    $content = curl_exec($ch);
    if (!$content){
        $error = curl_error($ch);
        $info = curl_getinfo($ch);
        die("cURL request failed, error = {$error}; info = " . print_r($info, true));
    }
    if(curl_errno($ch)){
        echo 'error:' . curl_error($ch);
    } else {
        return $content;        
    }
    curl_close($ch);
}

Answer 5

am using this simple one

´´´´ class Connect {

public $url;
public $path;
public $username;
public $password;

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$this->username:$this->password");

    //PROPFIND request that lists all requested properties.
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "PROPFIND");
    $response = curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);