Curl request with headers - separate body a from a header

Question

Ive got a code

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);        
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
    $ret = curl_exec($ch);
    $responseCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    curl_close($ch);

Now i want to extract the body from $ret without headers. Any idea how to do it?

score 43 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '14 at 21:45

raina77ow's response is good. From the comments it looks like there are a few conditions that would cause the "explode" to not work. I found a way that works better for me and thought I'd share.

By calling curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE) you can get the length of the response header. So I did the following:

// Original Code
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);        
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
$ret = curl_exec($ch);
$responseCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

// Added Code
$header_len = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE);
$header = substr($ret, 0, $header_len);
$body = substr($ret, $header_len);

// Back to Original Code
curl_close($ch);

This is working great for me. I hope it helps someone else.

It seems `CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER` doesn't do anything anymore. [see this SO question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6007363/what-does-curlopt-binarytranfer-exactly-mean) — jxmallett, Oct 27 '16 at 01:01
Perfect answer... at last I'm saved from those bad scripts that just split by '\n\n' — leedch, May 18 '17 at 14:30

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '12 at 13:52

22

How about this:

list($headers, $content) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $ret, 2);

... which should give you the body of your request in the $content variable?

answered Apr 30 '12 at 13:52

raina77ow

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8

This fails when HTTP/1.1. 100 Continue headers exist. – sivann May 24 '12 at 15:17
5

You can remove the Continue-Header with `curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Expect:'));`. – Julian D. Jan 16 '13 at 18:14
3

This is also invalid when CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION is used and an address with a 301 or 302 redirect is fetched. – Justin Russell Feb 19 '14 at 15:39
2

This is solid for GET requests, but for situations like POST, see natiupiru's answer. – The Onin Jun 28 '15 at 03:53
damn that 100 Continue gotcha cost me the better part of the day! – georgiecasey Dec 13 '16 at 18:34

Simon East · Answer 3 · 2017-06-09T07:25:28.293

Drawing on @Geoffrey excellent answer in this thread...

Some of the other solutions offered this thread are not doing this correctly.

Splitting on \r\n\r\n is not reliable when CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION is on or when the server responds with a 100 code.
Detecting the size of the headers via CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE is also not always reliable, especially when proxies are used or in some of the same redirection scenarios.

The most reliable method of obtaining headers is using CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION. Then you can remove curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1); and your body will be clean with no headers.

Here is a very clean method of performing this using PHP closures. It also converts all headers to lowercase for consistent handling across servers and HTTP versions.

$ch = curl_init();
$headers = [];
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

// Run the following function for each header received
// Note: Does NOT handle multiple instances of the same header. Later one will overwrite.
//       Consider handling that scenario if you need it.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION, function($curl, $header) use (&$headers) {
    $len = strlen($header);
    $header = explode(':', $header, 2);
    if (count($header) >= 2)
        $headers[strtolower(trim($header[0]))] = trim($header[1]);
    return $len;
});

$data = curl_exec($ch);
print_r($headers);

This should be a comment, not an answer. If it is a duplicate question, [vote to close](http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/close-questions) as such. If not, tailor the answer to this specific question. — Petter Friberg, Jun 09 '17 at 07:13

Curl request with headers - separate body a from a header

3 Answers3