Basic curl example

    Once you've compiled PHP with cURL support, you can begin using the cURL functions. The basic idea behind the cURL functions is that you initialize a cURL session using the curl_init(), then you can set all your options for the transfer via the curl_setopt(), then you can execute the session with the curl_exec() and then you finish off your session using the curl_close(). Here is an example that uses the cURL functions to fetch the example.com homepage into a file:

    Example #1 Using PHP's cURL module to fetch the example.com homepage

    <?php

    $ch     = curl_init("http://www.example.com/");
    $fp = fopen("example_homepage.txt", "w");

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

    curl_exec($ch);
    if(    curl_error($ch)) {
    fwrite($fp, curl_error($ch));
    }
    curl_close($ch);
    fclose($fp);
    ?>

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    User Contributed Notes 1 note

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    Roberto Braga
    10 years ago
    It is important to notice that when using curl to post form data and you use an array for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS option, the post will be in multipart format

    <?php
    $params    =['name'=>'John', 'surname'=>'Doe', 'age'=>36];
    $defaults = array(
    CURLOPT_URL => 'http://myremoteservice/',
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $params,
    );
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt_array($ch, ($options + $defaults));
    ?>
    This produce the following post header:

    --------------------------fd1c4191862e3566
    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

    Jhon
    --------------------------fd1c4191862e3566
    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="surnname"

    Doe
    --------------------------fd1c4191862e3566
    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="age"

    36
    --------------------------fd1c4191862e3566--

    Setting CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS as follow produce a standard post header

    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => http_build_query($params),

    Which is:
    name=John&surname=Doe&age=36

    This caused me 2 days of debug while interacting with a java service which was sensible to this difference, while the equivalent one in php got both format without problem.
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