Beginner php curl using post, prints contents of other script instead of response

Question

I'm attempting to learn how to use curl in php from a tutorial. I have one php script communicating with another. The first script is:

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL,"http://localhost/some_directories/testing.php");
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "Hello=World&Foo=Bar&Baz=Wombat");

curl_exec ($curl);
curl_close ($curl)

And a second 'testing.php' script contains only the php tags and: var_dump($_POST);

When I run the first script I get the output: var_dump($_POST); instead of the posted values. I'm sure this is something obvious, but I'm not sure why it's happening.

Both the files do have the php tags. Sorry I should have made it clearer in the message, but I had some trouble getting them to show up. — Memento Mori, Dec 19 '13 at 19:36
Okay. What happens when you try to access the page via your web browser: `http://localhost/some_directories/testing.php`? — Amal Murali, Dec 19 '13 at 19:38
It prints out the contents of the file as well. Maybe it's an apache setup problem? — Memento Mori, Dec 19 '13 at 19:39
adding the comment above, what about adding echo "
"; var_dump($_GET); to the second script and then pinging that page with this http://localhost/some_directories/testing.php?Hello=World&Foo=Bar&Baz=Wombat — ssaltman, Dec 19 '13 at 19:40
@AmalMurali from the commandline. Like 'php firstscript.php' — Memento Mori, Dec 19 '13 at 19:42
things to check: are the files in the same directory? are there any characters at the very beginning of the file that might make the script miss the 'var_dump($_POST);' — ssaltman, Dec 19 '13 at 19:44
@MementoMori: Load the PHP file via your browser and immediately check the webserver error log (i.e. `var/log/apache2/error.log` if you're on Unix). — Amal Murali, Dec 19 '13 at 19:51
Thanks for your help Amal and others. It was a mistake in the httpd.conf file, loadmodule php5 was commented out. Obviously I should have noticed this earlier but I was running the files from the command line. — Memento Mori, Dec 19 '13 at 19:57
@MementoMori: Why did you accept [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/20690578/1438393) answer? What you said was suggested in [Eduardo's link](http://stackoverflow.com/a/20690449/1438393) — Amal Murali, Dec 19 '13 at 23:48
@AmalMurali Switched it up. I just wanted to mark something to make sure more people didn't try to answer since I solved it. In all honesty you really deserve the credit. Anyway thanks! — Memento Mori, Dec 20 '13 at 01:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

<?php
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL,"http://localhost/some_directories/testing.php");
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "Hello=World&Foo=Bar&Baz=Wombat");

$response = curl_exec ($curl);
curl_close ($curl);

echo $response;
?>

testing.php

<?php 
var_dump($_REQUEST);

Check this too... if none of your PHP code is running - https://stackoverflow.com/a/5121589/781251

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '13 at 19:59

You forgot to set a true flag for CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER

Try this instead, its a lot cleaner, and breaks your parameters up a bit

$url = 'http://localhost/some_directories/testing.php';

$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
    CURLOPT_POST            => 1,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER  => 1,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS      => http_build_query(array(
                                'Hello' => 'World',
                                'Foo'   => 'Bar',
                                'Baz'   => 'Womabt',
                            )),
));

// error
if (FALSE === ($data = curl_exec($ch)))
{
    print_r(curl_error($ch));
}

curl_close($ch);

print_r($data);

Beginner php curl using post, prints contents of other script instead of response

2 Answers2