HTTP POST from PHP, without cURL
Here’s an example of how to send a POST request with straight up PHP, no cURL:
<?php
function do_post_request($url, $data, $optional_headers = null)
{
$params = array('http' => array(
'method' => 'POST',
'content' => $data
));
if ($optional_headers !== null) {
$params['http']['header'] = $optional_headers;
}
$ctx = stream_context_create($params);
$fp = @fopen($url, 'rb', false, $ctx);
if (!$fp) {
throw new Exception("Problem with $url, $php_errormsg");
}
$response = @stream_get_contents($fp);
if ($response === false) {
throw new Exception("Problem reading data from $url, $php_errormsg");
}
return $response;
}
$optional_headers is a string containing additional HTTP headers that you would like to send in your request.
PHP’s HTTP wrapper will automatically fill out the Content-Length header based on the length of the $data that you pass in. It will also automatically set the Content-Type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded if you don’t specify one in the $optional_headers.
I find this very handy; I don’t need to code in redirection logic, HTTP auth handling, user agent setting and so on; they are handled for me by PHP.
You may also want to look into http_build_query() which is a convenience function that allows you to assemble query/post parameters from a PHP variable, applying appropriate escaping.
