XVI. CURL, Client URL Library Functions

Introduction

PHP supports libcurl, a library created by Daniel Stenberg, that allows you to connect and communicate to many different types of servers with many different types of protocols. libcurl currently supports the http, https, ftp, gopher, telnet, dict, file, and ldap protocols. libcurl also supports HTTPS certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading (this can also be done with PHP's ftp extension), HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, and user+password authentication.

These functions have been added in PHP 4.0.2.

Requirements

In order to use the CURL functions you need to install the CURL package. PHP requires that you use CURL 7.0.2-beta or higher. PHP will not work with any version of CURL below version 7.0.2-beta. In PHP 4.2.3, you will need CURL version 7.9.0 or higher. From PHP 4.3.0, you will need a CURL version that's 7.9.8 or higher. PHP 5.0.0 will most likely require a CURL version greater than 7.10.5

Installation

To use PHP's CURL support you must also compile PHP --with-curl[=DIR] where DIR is the location of the directory containing the lib and include directories. In the "include" directory there should be a folder named "curl" which should contain the easy.h and curl.h files. There should be a file named libcurl.a located in the "lib" directory. Beginning with PHP 4.3.0 you can configure PHP to use CURL for URL streams --with-curlwrappers.

Note to Win32 Users: In order to enable this module on a Windows environment, you must copy libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll from the DLL folder of the PHP/Win32 binary package to the SYSTEM folder of your Windows machine. (Ex: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 or C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM)

Predefined Constants

The constants below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

CURLOPT_DNS_USE_GLOBAL_CACHE (integer)

CURLOPT_DNS_CACHE_TIMEOUT (integer)

CURLOPT_FTPSSLAUTH (integer): Available since PHP 5.1.0

CURLOPT_PORT (integer)

CURLOPT_FILE (integer)

CURLOPT_INFILE (integer)

CURLOPT_INFILESIZE (integer)

CURLOPT_URL (integer)

CURLOPT_PROXY (integer)

CURLOPT_VERBOSE (integer)

CURLOPT_HEADER (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER (integer)

CURLOPT_NOPROGRESS (integer)

CURLOPT_NOBODY (integer)

CURLOPT_FAILONERROR (integer)

CURLOPT_UPLOAD (integer)

CURLOPT_POST (integer)

CURLOPT_FTPLISTONLY (integer)

CURLOPT_FTPAPPEND (integer)

CURLOPT_NETRC (integer)

CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION (integer)

CURLOPT_FTPASCII (integer)

CURLOPT_PUT (integer)

CURLOPT_MUTE (integer)

CURLOPT_USERPWD (integer)

CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD (integer)

CURLOPT_RANGE (integer)

CURLOPT_TIMEOUT (integer)

CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS (integer)

CURLOPT_REFERER (integer)

CURLOPT_USERAGENT (integer)

CURLOPT_FTPPORT (integer)

CURLOPT_FTP_USE_EPSV (integer)

CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT (integer)

CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME (integer)

CURLOPT_RESUME_FROM (integer)

CURLOPT_COOKIE (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLCERT (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLCERTPASSWD (integer)

CURLOPT_WRITEHEADER (integer)

CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST (integer)

CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLVERSION (integer)

CURLOPT_TIMECONDITION (integer)

CURLOPT_TIMEVALUE (integer)

CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST (integer)

CURLOPT_STDERR (integer)

CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT (integer)

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER (integer)

CURLOPT_QUOTE (integer)

CURLOPT_POSTQUOTE (integer)

CURLOPT_INTERFACE (integer)

CURLOPT_KRB4LEVEL (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL (integer)

CURLOPT_FILETIME (integer)

CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION (integer)

CURLOPT_READFUNCTION (integer)

CURLOPT_PASSWDFUNCTION (integer)

CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION (integer)

CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS (integer)

CURLOPT_MAXCONNECTS (integer)

CURLOPT_CLOSEPOLICY (integer)

CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT (integer)

CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE (integer)

CURLOPT_RANDOM_FILE (integer)

CURLOPT_EGDSOCKET (integer)

CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT (integer)

CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER (integer)

CURLOPT_CAINFO (integer)

CURLOPT_CAPATH (integer)

CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR (integer)

CURLOPT_SSL_CIPHER_LIST (integer)

CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER (integer)

CURLOPT_NOSIGNAL (integer)

CURLOPT_PROXYTYPE (integer)

CURLOPT_BUFFERSIZE (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTPGET (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLKEY (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLKEYTYPE (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLKEYPASSWD (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLENGINE (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLENGINE_DEFAULT (integer)

CURLOPT_SSLCERTTYPE (integer)

CURLOPT_CRLF (integer)

CURLOPT_ENCODING (integer)

CURLOPT_PROXYPORT (integer)

CURLOPT_UNRESTRICTED_AUTH (integer)

CURLOPT_FTP_USE_EPRT (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTP200ALIASES (integer)

CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH (integer)

CURLAUTH_BASIC (integer)

CURLAUTH_DIGEST (integer)

CURLAUTH_GSSNEGOTIATE (integer)

CURLAUTH_NTLM (integer)

CURLAUTH_ANY (integer)

CURLAUTH_ANYSAFE (integer)

CURLOPT_PROXYAUTH (integer)

CURLCLOSEPOLICY_LEAST_RECENTLY_USED (integer)

CURLCLOSEPOLICY_LEAST_TRAFFIC (integer)

CURLCLOSEPOLICY_SLOWEST (integer)

CURLCLOSEPOLICY_CALLBACK (integer)

CURLCLOSEPOLICY_OLDEST (integer)

CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL (integer)

CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE (integer)

CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE (integer)

CURLINFO_REQUEST_SIZE (integer)

CURLINFO_TOTAL_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_NAMELOOKUP_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_CONNECT_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_PRETRANSFER_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_SIZE_UPLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_SIZE_DOWNLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_SPEED_UPLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_FILETIME (integer)

CURLINFO_SSL_VERIFYRESULT (integer)

CURLINFO_CONTENT_LENGTH_DOWNLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_CONTENT_LENGTH_UPLOAD (integer)

CURLINFO_STARTTRANSFER_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE (integer)

CURLINFO_REDIRECT_TIME (integer)

CURLINFO_REDIRECT_COUNT (integer)

CURL_VERSION_IPV6 (integer)

CURL_VERSION_KERBEROS4 (integer)

CURL_VERSION_SSL (integer)

CURL_VERSION_LIBZ (integer)

CURLVERSION_NOW (integer)

CURLE_OK (integer)

CURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL (integer)

CURLE_FAILED_INIT (integer)

CURLE_URL_MALFORMAT (integer)

CURLE_URL_MALFORMAT_USER (integer)

CURLE_COULDNT_RESOLVE_PROXY (integer)

CURLE_COULDNT_RESOLVE_HOST (integer)

CURLE_COULDNT_CONNECT (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_SERVER_REPLY (integer)

CURLE_FTP_ACCESS_DENIED (integer)

CURLE_FTP_USER_PASSWORD_INCORRECT (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_PASS_REPLY (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_USER_REPLY (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_PASV_REPLY (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WEIRD_227_FORMAT (integer)

CURLE_FTP_CANT_GET_HOST (integer)

CURLE_FTP_CANT_RECONNECT (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_SET_BINARY (integer)

CURLE_PARTIAL_FILE (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_RETR_FILE (integer)

CURLE_FTP_WRITE_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_FTP_QUOTE_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_HTTP_NOT_FOUND (integer)

CURLE_WRITE_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_MALFORMAT_USER (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_STOR_FILE (integer)

CURLE_READ_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY (integer)

CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEOUTED (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_SET_ASCII (integer)

CURLE_FTP_PORT_FAILED (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_USE_REST (integer)

CURLE_FTP_COULDNT_GET_SIZE (integer)

CURLE_HTTP_RANGE_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_HTTP_POST_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_SSL_CONNECT_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_FTP_BAD_DOWNLOAD_RESUME (integer)

CURLE_FILE_COULDNT_READ_FILE (integer)

CURLE_LDAP_CANNOT_BIND (integer)

CURLE_LDAP_SEARCH_FAILED (integer)

CURLE_LIBRARY_NOT_FOUND (integer)

CURLE_FUNCTION_NOT_FOUND (integer)

CURLE_ABORTED_BY_CALLBACK (integer)

CURLE_BAD_FUNCTION_ARGUMENT (integer)

CURLE_BAD_CALLING_ORDER (integer)

CURLE_HTTP_PORT_FAILED (integer)

CURLE_BAD_PASSWORD_ENTERED (integer)

CURLE_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS (integer)

CURLE_UNKNOWN_TELNET_OPTION (integer)

CURLE_TELNET_OPTION_SYNTAX (integer)

CURLE_OBSOLETE (integer)

CURLE_SSL_PEER_CERTIFICATE (integer)

CURLE_GOT_NOTHING (integer)

CURLE_SSL_ENGINE_NOTFOUND (integer)

CURLE_SSL_ENGINE_SETFAILED (integer)

CURLE_SEND_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_RECV_ERROR (integer)

CURLE_SHARE_IN_USE (integer)

CURLE_SSL_CERTPROBLEM (integer)

CURLE_SSL_CIPHER (integer)

CURLE_SSL_CACERT (integer)

CURLE_BAD_CONTENT_ENCODING (integer)

CURLE_LDAP_INVALID_URL (integer)

CURLE_FILESIZE_EXCEEDED (integer)

CURLE_FTP_SSL_FAILED (integer)

CURLFTPAUTH_DEFAULT (integer): Available since PHP 5.1.0

CURLFTPAUTH_SSL (integer): Available since PHP 5.1.0

CURLFTPAUTH_TLS (integer): Available since PHP 5.1.0

CURLPROXY_HTTP (integer)

CURLPROXY_SOCKS5 (integer)

CURL_NETRC_OPTIONAL (integer)

CURL_NETRC_IGNORED (integer)

CURL_NETRC_REQUIRED (integer)

CURL_HTTP_VERSION_NONE (integer)

CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_0 (integer)

CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1 (integer)

CURLM_CALL_MULTI_PERFORM (integer)

CURLM_OK (integer)

CURLM_BAD_HANDLE (integer)

CURLM_BAD_EASY_HANDLE (integer)

CURLM_OUT_OF_MEMORY (integer)

CURLM_INTERNAL_ERROR (integer)

CURLMSG_DONE (integer)

Examples

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($ch); curl_close($ch); fclose($fp); ?>

Table of Contents
curl_close -- Close a CURL session
curl_copy_handle -- Copy a cURL handle along with all of it's preferences
curl_errno -- Return the last error number
curl_error -- Return a string containing the last error for the current session
curl_exec -- Perform a CURL session
curl_getinfo -- Get information regarding a specific transfer
curl_init -- Initialize a CURL session
curl_multi_add_handle -- Add a normal cURL handle to a cURL multi handle
curl_multi_close -- Close a set of cURL handles
curl_multi_exec -- Run the sub-connections of the current cURL handle
curl_multi_getcontent -- Return the content of a cURL handle if CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER is set
curl_multi_info_read -- Get information about the current transfers
curl_multi_init -- Returns a new cURL multi handle
curl_multi_remove_handle -- Remove a multi handle from a set of cURL handles
curl_multi_select -- Get all the sockets associated with the cURL extension, which can then be "selected"
curl_setopt -- Set an option for a CURL transfer
curl_version -- Return the current CURL version

User Contributed Notes
CURL, Client URL Library Functions

samlowry at e-baka dot net
14-May-2005 08:09


About CURLOPT_ENCODING:

added in curl in 7.10 - Oct 1 2002

In 7.10.5 - May 19 2003 syntax was chnaged:

"setting CURLOPT_ENCODING to "" automaticly enables all supported encodings"

ksavage at achaean dot com
28-Mar-2005 03:25


Had one heck of a time getting curl to send my XML request.  Tried a lot of different things, FINALLY ended up with this.  



Im making a curl request to paymentech / Orbital 's payment gateway.   Essentially, I took the same header i made for the fsockopen() request, and used it for this curl request. (Hostinc company didnt allow fsockopen().



You'll note that this specific gateway requires a custom content type header.  Thats what gave me the most trouble.  When using the CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, and CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS together, it doesnt matter, it sends the default post header because of CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS. 



<?php



$url = "https://your.gateway.url";

$page = "/proccessing_page.cgi";



$post_string = "<YourXML>All XML stuff Here</YourXML>";



       $header  = "POST ".$page." HTTP/1.0 \r\n";

        $header .= "MIME-Version: 1.0 \r\n";

        $header .= "Content-type: application/PTI26 \r\n";

        $header .= "Content-length: ".strlen($post_string)." \r\n";

        $header .= "Content-transfer-encoding: text \r\n";

        $header .= "Request-number: 1 \r\n";

        $header .= "Document-type: Request \r\n";

        $header .= "Interface-Version: Test 1.4 \r\n";

        $header .= "Connection: close \r\n\r\n";

        $header .= $post_string;

        

        $ch = curl_init();

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);

       curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 4); 

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, $header);



        $data = curl_exec($ch);         if (curl_errno($ch)) {

           print curl_error($ch);

        } else {

           curl_close($ch);

        }



// use XML Parser on $data, and your set!



        $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();

        xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);

        xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);

        xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $data, $vals, $index);

        xml_parser_free($xml_parser);



// $vals = array of XML tags.  Go get em!



?>



Worked like a dream for me.  Enjoy!

lukas at MORESPAM dot jhu dot edu
05-Mar-2005 09:29


Here's a function that I needed and couldn't use CURL... it helps you if you want to send the POST data (instead of GET) from one form to 2 or more other PHP scripts.  Trust me... it's a life saver!!



      function HTTP_Post($URL,$data, $referrer="") {



        // parsing the given URL

        $URL_Info=parse_url($URL);



        // Building referrer

        if($referrer=="") // if not given use this script as referrer

          $referrer=$_SERVER["SCRIPT_URI"];



        // making string from $data

        foreach($data as $key=>$value)

          $values[]="$key=".urlencode($value);

        $data_string=implode("&",$values);



        // Find out which port is needed - if not given use standard (=80)

        if(!isset($URL_Info["port"]))

          $URL_Info["port"]=80;



        // building POST-request:

        $request.="POST ".$URL_Info["path"]." HTTP/1.1\n";

        $request.="Host: ".$URL_Info["host"]."\n";

        $request.="Referer: $referer\n";

        $request.="Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n";

        $request.="Content-length: ".strlen($data_string)."\n";

        $request.="Connection: close\n";

        $request.="\n";

        $request.=$data_string."\n";



        $fp = fsockopen($URL_Info["host"],$URL_Info["port"]);

        fputs($fp, $request);

        while(!feof($fp)) {

            $result .= fgets($fp, 128);

        }

        fclose($fp);



        return $result;

      }



      $output1=HTTP_Post("http://www.server1.com/script1.php",$_POST);

      $output2=HTTP_Post("http://www.server2.com/script2.php",$_POST);

christian at webaxis dot com dot au
04-Mar-2005 08:38


I use CURL to get history of e-gold payment.



function get_history($egold, $pass, $batch, $counter, $s_date, 

$s_month, $s_year, $e_date, $e_month, $e_year, $type){



   $defined_vars = get_defined_vars();



   $_url = 'https://www.e-gold.com/acct/historycsv.asp';



   $params =     "AccountID=$egold&PassPhrase=$pass&" .

        "startmonth=".$s_month."&startday=".

$s_date."&startyear=".$s_year."&" .

        "endmonth=".$e_month."&endday=".

$e_date."&endyear=".$e_year."&";



if($type == "0"){

   $params .=     "paymentsmade=1&";

}

if($type == "1"){

   $params .=     "paymentsreceived=1&";

}



   if(!empty($batch)){

   $params .=     "batchfilter=$batch&";

   }



   if(!empty($counter)){

   $params .=     "counterfilter=$counter&";

   }



   $params .=     "metalfilter=1&";



   $ch = curl_init();



   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);

   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);

   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$_url);

   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST,  2);

   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $defined_vars['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

   $content = curl_exec ($ch);



   curl_close ($ch);



   return $content;



}

Sebastian [Jegeras {snabel-a} gmail.com]
27-Jan-2005 02:51


I did this script to login to a community X number of times



<?php



$url = �[the script that handle logins]�;



if (empty($_GET[�u�]) && empty($_GET[�p�]) && empty($_GET[�x�])){

       echo "<FORM NAME=�make� METHOD=�get� ACTION=�".$_SERVER[�PHP_SELF�]."�>

    ".$url."?u=�<INPUT TYPE=�text� NAME=�u� value=�nickname�>�

    &p=�<INPUT TYPE=�text� NAME=�p� value=�password�>�

    &x=�<INPUT TYPE=�text� NAME=�x� value=�times�>�

    <input type=�submit�>";

}else{    

    if(!intval($_GET[�x�])) $_GET[�x�] = 10;

    $time=time();

    $params = "username=".$_GET[�u�]."&userpass=".urldecode($_GET[�p�]);

    $count = login($url,$params);

    echo $count."/".$_GET[�x�]." logins tog ".(time() - $time)." sekunder";

}



//

function login($url,$params){    

    $user_agent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)";

    

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);

    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);

    

    $cnt=0;

    for($i=0;$i<($_GET[�x�]);$i++){

        if(curl_exec ($ch))$cnt++;

    }

    curl_close ($ch);

    return $cnt;

}

?>

php dot net at lunchclub dot com
12-Jan-2005 02:34


Additional PHP curl documenation is at:

http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/php/

josh,endquote,com
24-Dec-2004 10:58


If you're trying to post forms to an ASP.NET server, you will need to include the value of the __VIEWSTATE hidden field in your post. You can get it like this:



$html = curl_exec($ch);

$matches = array();

preg_match('/<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" value="([^"]*?)" \/>/', $html, $matches);

$viewstate = $matches[1];

$viewstate = urlencode($viewstate);



That last urlencode() is the bit that drove me crazy for a while.

php at cobalthorizons dot com
14-Nov-2004 12:44


btw, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER expects an array:



$myHeader = array(

    "MIME-Version: 1.0",

    "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1",

    "Content-transfer-encoding: text",

);

    

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $myHeader);



(hope this saves someone several hours of...)

mikeb[at]xamo[dot]com
14-Oct-2004 03:11


A note of warning for PHP 5 users: if you try to fetch the CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE using curl_getinfo when there is a connect error, you will core dump PHP. I have informed the Curl team about this, so it will hopefully be fixed soon. Just make sure you check for an error before you look for this data.

alidrus at langkah dot com
14-Sep-2004 04:31


In recent versions of php, CURLOPT_MUTE has (probably) been deprecated. Any attempt of using curl_setopt() to set CURLOPT_MUTE will give you a warning like this:



PHP Notice:  Use of undefined constant CURLOPT_MUTE - assumed 'CURLOPT_MUTE' in ....



If you wish tu silence the curl output, use the following instead:



    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);



And then,



    $curl_output=curl_exec($ch);



The output of the curl operation will be stored as a string in $curl_output while the operation remains totally silent.

gordon_e_rouse at yahoo dot com dot au
08-Sep-2004 10:08


Multipart form uploads (ie simulating the upload of files from a browser form) is surprisingly easy, yet hard to find information on.... hope this changes that. 



$postData = array();



//simulates <input type="file" name="file_name">

$postData[ 'file_name' ] = "@test.txt";

$postData[ 'submit' ] = "UPLOAD"; 

        

$ch = curl_init();



curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url );        

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 );



//seems no need to tell it enctype='multipart/data' it already knows

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postData );



$response = curl_exec( $ch ); 



//where test.txt is a file in the same directory!

rich @ richud dot com
11-Jun-2004 09:12


If you have upgraded to using thread safe PHP (with apache 2 MPM=worker) note that

CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR / CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE both need an absolute path set for the cookie file location and no longer take a relative path. 

(As before, also remember to have set correct permissions to allow a writeable cookie file/dir by apache)

[php 4.3.7/apache v2.0.49]

simon [at] vhostdirect [dot] co [dot] uk
03-Mar-2004 06:53


It took me quite some to to figure out how to get Curl (with SSL), OpenSSL and PHP to play nicely together.



After reinstalling MS-VC7 and compiling OpenSSL to finally realise this was'nt nesscary.



If your like me and like *Nix systems more than Windows then you'll most probly have similar problems.



I came across this, on a simple google with the right keywords.



http://www.tonyspencer.com/journal/00000037.htm



I read thru that and found my mistake.



Its just a small list of notes, I found them to be the best I've found on the subject and the most simplist.



Dont forget to add a simple line like this into your scripts to get them working on Win32.



<?php

if($WINDIR) curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_CAINFO, "c:\\windows\\ca-bundle.crt");

?>



Last note: ca-bundle.crt file is located in the Curl download. I stored mine in the windows directory and apache/php can access it fine.



All the best and I hope this helps.



Simon Lightfoot

vHost Direct Limited

hraefn at hraefn dot net
03-Feb-2004 03:15


You can request (and have deflated for you) compressed http (from mod_gzip or ob_gzhandler, for instance) by using the following:



curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_ENCODING , "gzip");



This seems to work fine with the latest php (4.3.4) curl (7.11.0) and zlib (1.1.4) under linux.  This is much more elegant than forcing the Accept-Encode header and using gzdeflate on an edited result.

mmm at turkmenweb dot com
15-Dec-2003 06:49


I know that many people suffer from cURL when trying to send XML data. I solved this problem and want to share it with you:





I was trying to send SMS messages with a SMS service provider. They gave me the following ASP code, where you send data as XML and receive a response in XML as well:





url = "http://...someaddress/somefile.asp";


xmldata ="<XMLtag1>many other tags, data here</XMLtag1>";


Set ob = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")


ob.Open "POST",url,false


ob.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"


ob.Send xmldata


...then recieve code was here...





This is done in PHP using cURL library in this way:





<?php


$XPost = "<XMLcontent>sameas above</XMLcontent>"


$url = "..same URL as above.."; 


$ch = curl_init();    // initialize curl handle 


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url); // set url to post to 


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1); // return into a variable 


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 4); // times out after 4s 


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $XPost); // add POST fields 


$result = curl_exec($ch); // run the whole process 


echo $result; //contains response from server


?>





Some say that you should use CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER and etc. to perform this task , as you can see you don't need those at all.





Hope it will help those who tries to simulate Msxml2.XMLHTTP or simply try sending XML data over PHP.





Regards,


Muhammed Mamedov

rodneywa at yahoo dot com
24-Oct-2003 03:47


Here's how I was able to post arrays using Curl:



$array_of_vars[]="var1";

$array_of_vars[]="var2";

$array_of_vars[]="var3";

$array_of_vars[]="var4";



$submit_url = "http://www.example.com/reads_post.php";

$formvars["feild1"] = "feild1";



for ($i=0;$i<sizeof($array_of_vars);$i++)

    $formvars["array_of_vars[$i]"] = $dna[$i];



    

// init curl handle

$ch = curl_init($submit_url);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION,1); 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $formvars);



// perform post

$rr=curl_exec($ch);

echo $rr;

curl_close($ch);

da at canaan dot co dot il
08-Oct-2003 09:42


i had problems with receiving all of the data that was replied to me about a transaction, atlast after way too much time spent i found out that all i missed was:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);



hope it helped anyone

alwong at 123infosys dot com
20-Sep-2003 09:35


The following scripts show how to post form to a web server via https.  I modified rodrigo posting because it did not work for me on IIS5.

<?php

    $url = https://www.yourserver.com/yourrequest;

    $params = "name=your_name&email=youremail@mail.com";

    $user_agent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)";



    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST,  2);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);  // this line makes it work under https



    $result=curl_exec ($ch);

    curl_close ($ch);



    echo("Results: <br>".$result);

?>

rodrigo dot nakahodo at dhweb dot com dot br
18-Sep-2003 02:57


The script shows how to get a simple response of a SSL Server. Enjoy it!



<?php



    $defined_vars = get_defined_vars();



    $_url = 'https://www.example.com.br';

    $_VAR001 = 'nono';

    $_VAR002 = 'nonono';



    $params = "VAR001=$_VAR001&VAR002=$_VAR002&";



    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$_url);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST,  2);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $defined_vars['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1); 

    $result=curl_exec ($ch);

    curl_close ($ch);



    echo("Output: ".$result);



?>

helvecio_oliveira at yahoo dot com dot br
21-Aug-2003 11:12


CURL install steps in Mandrake 9.1: 

==========================================================

cp -r /usr/src/php-devel/extensions/curl /tmp/curl

cd /tmp/curl

phpize

./configure

make install

echo "extension = curl.so" > /etc/php/90_curl.ini



Restart apache web server.

==========================================================

curl.so is in:

/usr/lib/php/extensions/



look in phpinfo, the string:

/etc/php/90_curl.ini 



Needs these  tools:

autoconf

automake

libtool

m4

php430-devel-430-11mdk.rpm



Some docs:

/usr/share/doc/php430-devel-430/SELF-CONTAINED-EXTENSIONS

eric at imap dot ch
07-Jul-2003 11:38


I managed to use curl to retrieve information from severs on ports other than 80 or 443 (for https) on some installations but not on all. 

If you get an "CURLE_COULDNT_CONNECT /* 7 */" error, try adding the port : (for example)

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PORT, $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']);

php at mechintosh dot com
03-Jul-2003 10:51


IMHO the example code is somewhat confusing; the fopen() and fclose() are not needed at all, AFAICT.



By default the resulting data/page of the external server is just printed out. To assign the result of the curl session to a variable, one can use

- output buffering (see ob_start(), ob_get_contents())

- curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

With the latter, the result of curl_exec is the actual data instead of a boolean.

sorin
09-Apr-2003 03:44


function curl_string ($url,$user_agent,$proxy){



        $ch = curl_init(); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "c:\cookie.txt");

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); 

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);

        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 120);

        $result = curl_exec ($ch);

        curl_close($ch);

        return $result;

    

}



$url_page = "http://www.google.com/";

$user_agent = "Mozilla/4.0";

$proxy = "http://208.25.243.167:8080";

$string = curl_string($url_page,$user_agent,$proxy);

echo $string;



this could hep someone

Sorin

thomas at NOSPAM dot gutschke dot com
07-Apr-2003 07:00


Here's a little code snippet if you need the last-modified-time for a remote file as filemtime() does not work on those. :)



$modified = "";

function read_header($ch, $header)

{

    global $modified;

    $length = strlen($header);

    if(strstr($header, "Last-Modified:"))

    {

        $modified = substr($header, 15);

    }

    return $length;

}



function last_mod($remote_file)

{

    global $modified;

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $remote_file);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION, 'read_header');



    $headers = curl_exec ($ch);

    curl_close ($ch);

    return $modified;

}



use something like

    echo strtotime(last_mod("http://www.php.net/"));

to get the time as an Unix timestamp or

    echo last_mod("http://www.php.net/");

to get the gmdate()-like time.

dweingart at pobox dot com
02-Apr-2003 05:08


If you want to Curl to follow redirects and you would also like Curl to echo back any cookies that are set in the process, use this:



curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, '-');



'-' means stdout



-dw

diana dot castillo at nvtechnologies dot com
25-Mar-2003 12:30


if you need to install curl on a windows system, this has the best explanation:

http://zend.com/zend/tut/tutorial-thome3.php

bharris at spro dot net
25-Feb-2003 06:58


For Win2000: To get the 4.3.1 curl dll to work with https you now need to download the latest win32 curl library from http://curl.haxx.se and snag the ca-bundle.crt file from the lib directory.  Place this somewhere handy on your webserver.



Then in your PHP script, add the following setopt line to the rest of your curl_setopt commands:



curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CAFILE, 'C:\pathto\ca-bundle.crt')



This worked for me and allowed me to discontinue using the CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER set to zero hack.

retro at nospam dot enx dot org
11-Jan-2003 07:42


When using cURL to do posts, make sure you actually specify the CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS option. Not doing so seems to make PHP core (and apache as well if you're running it through there).

asi at neo dot ee
13-Dec-2002 09:28


If anybody has problems with getting new curl working with older version of php then ...



I got stuck with installing curl-7.10.2+php 4.0.6 or better said configuring PHP with mentioned version of curl.



After some hopeless attempts to configure curl support into PHP I saw an error message:



"checking for cURL greater than or equal to 7.8... ./configure: line 11725: test: 070a02: integer expression expected"



after which configure said: "configure: error: cURL version 7.8 or later is required to compile php with cURL support"



On the mentioned line "test" is used to compare verion from curl-sonfig with preset value 70800 but ... test expects both values to be integer. From verson 7.8 curl outputs its version in hex...



I did'nt had the time to think about fixing this - I just deleted lines responsible and got curl working :)

jerome at blaster dot dyndns dot org
10-Oct-2002 09:23


I wanted to import an https Web pages thanks to fopen("https://xxx", "r") or fsockopen but as far as I read, it was only possible with cURL extension (to get these functions worked with https, we have to wait the PHP 4.3 release, TBC) , so I installed it and it worked. It is quite easy, but I spend to much time on it:

First of all, here is the most important: WE DON'T NEED to compile anything to get curl worked. All the extensions that we need are already in the PHP 4.2.3 zip. So here are the instructions and links to get Apache + PHP + CURL work properly:



Downloads:

=> Apache Web server with Openssl included:

   http://www.modssl.org/contrib/ftp/contrib/ Apache_1.3.26-Mod_SSL_2.8.9-OpenSSL_0.9.6d-WIN32.zip



=> PHP 4.2.3 for Windows:

   http://www.php.net/get_download.php?df=php-4.2.3-Win32.zip



=> Optional: Openssl zip to get libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll (I didn't need them because I used those stored in PHP zip)

http://www.modssl.org/contrib/ftp/contrib/ OpenSSL-0.9.6d-win32_RAR3_Archive_.rar



Installs:

=> Unzip Apache in Program Files folder(there should be no problem with the blank in the path):



=> Follow those instructions: http://tud.at/programm/apache-ssl-win32-howto.php3 . I didn't exactly do what they wrote but it helped a lot. I created the test certificat thanks to this link in order to test my Apache server with SSL.



=> Configure httpd (easy to find on the Web) and test Apache before going on, it avoids problems.

   I just changed the Port from 80 (http) to 443 (https) in httpd, I only wanted to perform https.

   I didn't try to get the both working together. 



=> Unzip PHP in C:\Php path (don't install it in Program Files folder, you would have troubles because of the blank this time...) 



=> Configure PHP : http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php #install.windows.manual

   WARNING: php.ini MUST be stored into the c:\winnt folder and the dlls must be stored into the c:\winnt\system32 folder.



=> Test it with Apache and phpinfo() function.



cURL:

To add cURL extension, YOU DON'T NEED to compile anything.

All the extensions that you need are in the C:\php\extensions folder. To add cURL or any other extensions:



=> Have the libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll in the system32 folder (already done if you installed PHP)



=> Copy all dlls from php/dll/ folder to winnt/system32/ (libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll are already there if you followed

   the previous steps)



=> Remove the ";" in front of extension=php_curl.dll in php.ini.



Those instructions come from: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php #install.windows.extensions



And it should work, just test it with curl functions into your php script.

hamannDOTw at tDOTonline dot de
02-Jul-2002 11:18


Using the customrequest for a complete post is wrong. Libcurl will add a partial url, the http version and the standard headers after the post data - while this works with a non-persistent connection and an apache web server, it may fail under different conditions

smclean at scoreinfo dot tv
21-Jun-2002 08:46


For an exaplanation of those Predefined Constants listed above see the following URL: 



 http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/curl_easy_setopt.html

marco dot mcc at inwind dot it
27-May-2001 01:50


If you want to write your entire HTTP request without use any other CURL functions like CURLOPT_POST specify it within a curl_setopt ($ch,CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST , $req) line; 


Where $req looks like (let me imagine a POST request...):





POST /destination/script HTTP/1.1


Content-length: xxx


Content-type: text/xml


host: yourhost


accept: */*


accept-encoding: gzip, deflate


accept-language: en-us


connection: close; Keep-Alive


...


your POST data


...








CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST is not documented?!? but it's useful and amazing!





marcomcc (Roma)

dan dot polansky at seznam dot cz
17-Jan-2001 04:31


I used to download www pages to my script and one of the pages was different in MS explorer and different, when I downloaded it. Namely, information, I was really interested in was missing. That was because the server on the other bank of the river was looking at who is downloading the page. Everything got fixed when I pretended I was MSIE. It is done with curl. Here is a function, that you may use in similar situation





function download_pretending($url,$user_agent) {


   $ch = curl_init();


   curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);


   curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);


   curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);


   curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);


   $result = curl_exec ($ch); 


   curl_close ($ch);


   return $result;


}