Github API JSON Call returning nothing in PHP

Question

I'm trying to get the data from this Api call with the Github Api. However whenever I try and get the data from it I get the below error. I cannot seem to figure out why this isn't working.

I'm running it on a localhost through PhpStorm.

Code:

$url = urlencode("https://api.github.com/users/devinmatte/repos");
$json = file_get_contents($url);
$obj = json_decode($json);
echo $obj;

Error:

[Sat Mar 25 20:02:14 2017] PHP Warning:  file_get_contents(https%3A%2F%2Fapi.github.com%2Fusers%2Fdevinmatte%2Frepos): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/devin-matte/Documents/Git-Challenge/index.php on line 13

Git-Challenge is the name of my project I'm working on. I'm trying to Game-ify contributing to git repositories for students. — Devin Matté, Mar 26 '17 at 00:15

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '17 at 00:34

There are few errors:

no need to urlencode the url
you need to create context
you need to print_r, var_export etc instead of echo to print content of an array.

This should do the job:

$url = "http://api.github.com/users/devinmatte/repos";
$opts = [
    'http' => [
        'method' => 'GET',
        'header' => [
                'User-Agent: PHP'
        ]
    ]
];

$json = file_get_contents($url, false, stream_context_create($opts));
$obj = json_decode($json);
var_dump($obj);

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 26 '17 at 00:19

2

You are url encoding the whole URI, file_get_contents expect a valid http URI :

$json = file_get_contents("https://api.github.com/users/devinmatte/repos");
$obj = json_decode($json);
var_dump($obj);

answered Mar 26 '17 at 00:19

Bertrand Martel

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Running that code makes `$obj = NULL` despite https://api.github.com/users/devinmatte/repos definitely not being a null JSON object – Devin Matté Mar 26 '17 at 00:25
I get this is my Log: `[Sat Mar 25 20:30:15 2017] PHP Warning: file_get_contents(https://api.github.com/users/devinmatte/repos): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden in /home/devin-matte/Documents/Git-Challenge/index.php on line 12` – Devin Matté Mar 26 '17 at 00:31
check [this issue](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4545790/file-get-contents-returns-403-forbidden), it could be `allow_url_fopen` not set to `On` in `php.ini` or `user_agent` not set in `php.ini` – Bertrand Martel Mar 26 '17 at 00:32

Github API JSON Call returning nothing in PHP

2 Answers2