POSTing *from* php

do I have to write the functions myself?

[dingman]

Anyone know if there is a way to send an HTTP POST request from within a PHP script, short of opening a socket connection and writing HTTP out to it? I don't know of such a thing, and all I find in the PHP docs is a function that makes GET requests.

Making POSTs from a wab script is probably a fairly unusual thing to do, but it seems like I shouldn't be the first person to need it. Of course, I can implement it myself if I have to, but I'd rather use a canned solution if there is one.

[lorax]

I'm not sure what the answer is but I'm curious as to what you're trying to accomplish by executing a POST without normal form controls?

[aaronc]

I think you're looking for Curl.
You'll have to make sure php is complied to use it though. I don't think it's standard.

[dingman]

I know I could do it by making an external call to curl. I didn't know that curl could be used from within PHP, though.

Lorax - what I have in mind is making a 'post' request to a script on another server, and processing the results into my own output. Kinda like PayPal IPN.

[andreasfriedrich]

Hey Andrew, I just found this in one of my law text books. ;)
It might help. Client URL Library Functions [php.net]
Dinnerīs ready. Gotta go.
But I`ll just eat in front of my computer and read some more.
Andreas

Should have submitted this before finishing dinner. Now AaronC beat me to it.

[lorax]

dingman,
As aaronc and Andreas said, cURL would be the easiest way to execute it. You might be able to hack together another solution though it would probably be far less elegant.

<added>I don't suppose the data the form returns is in XML format. If it were you might be able to use XML-RPC.</added>

[dingman]

Thanks, everyone. I hadn't realized there was a lubcurl interface from PHP. I think that's just what I'm looking for.

<added>I don't suppose the data the form returns is in XML format. If it were you might be able to use XML-RPC.</added>

I wish :)

[transistor]

Two methods I have used:
1- CURL
2- HTML/JavaScript: Use PHP to write a form and submit automaticaly with JavaScript document.form.submit().

[Allen]

If your trying to submit POST data to another server (and/or get the response), I wrote a script which does this for NoChex APC system. There's a link on there for the code snippet I found which allowed me to do this.

Allen

[edited by: jatar_k at 6:09 pm (utc) on Nov. 28, 2002]

[cyberax]

You could always build up the POST header yourself using the header() function e.g...

<?php 
// function to read server name 
function servername($txt) 
{ 
 if (substr(strtoupper($txt),0,4)=="WWW.") 
 $txt="HTTP://".$txt; 
 if (substr(strtoupper($txt),0,7)!="HTTP://";)  
 return 0; 
 eregi("^(http://([^/ ]+))",$txt,$arr); 
 return $arr[2]; 
} 
$remote_url = "http://www.domain.com/script.php"; 
// built up POST data 
$request = "?name=Paul&greatness=high"; 
// Build the header  
$header = "POST $remote_url HTTP/1.0\r\n";  
$header .= "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";  
$header .= "Content-length: " . strlen($request) . "\r\n\r\n"; 
// Open the connection  
$fp = fsockopen(servername($remote_url), 80);  
if ($fp) {  
 // Send HTTP request  
 fputs($fp, $header . $request);  
 // Get the response  
 $response=""; 
 while (!feof($fp))  
 $response .= fgets($fp, 128);  
 fclose($fp); 
  
 print $response; 
} else { 
 die ("Cannot connect!"); 
} 
?> 

[andreasfriedrich]

In the original post Andrew wrote:

short of opening a socket connection and writing HTTP out to

Now you are telling him to open a socket connection and to write HTTP out to ;)

Andreas

[cyberax]

Oops!

Maybe I should read posts properly before I reply rather than just scan over them!

[ruserious]

Here is a httpClient class written in PHP which will let you do a lot more stuff:

lwest.free.fr/doc/php/lib/index.php3?page=net_http_client&lang=en

I found it extremely useful.

[edited by: jatar_k at 6:38 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2002]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[kindacheezy]

can you use a header like this

$redirect=("Location:http://whatever.php?2=".$myVar1."&1=".$myVar2);
header($redirect);

[andreasfriedrich]

Sure.

Note: HTTP/1.1 requires an absolute URI as argument to Location

[php.net...]

The query string is a valid part of a URI and may therefor be used as a URI with the Location header.

Andreas

[dingman]

Though it is worth noting that this will result in a 'GET' request rather than a 'POST' request. Different beasts.