Practical PHP cURL Syntax Examples

cURL GET Syntax

A GET request retrieves data from a specified URL.

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

$response = curl_exec($ch);

if (curl_errno($ch)) {
    echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($ch);
} else {
    $data = json_decode($response, true); // Decode JSON response
    print_r($data);
}

curl_close($ch);

cURL POST Syntax

A POST request sends data to the server, often used for submitting forms or JSON data.

$ch = curl_init();

$data = json_encode([
    'title' => 'foo',
    'body' => 'bar',
    'userId' => 1,
]);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// Set headers for JSON data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    'Content-Length: ' . strlen($data)
]);

$response = curl_exec($ch);

if (curl_errno($ch)) {
    echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($ch);
} else {
    $responseData = json_decode($response, true);
    print_r($responseData);
}

curl_close($ch);

cURL Syntax for Handling Errors and Debugging:

You can use curl_errno() and curl_error() to check and display errors.

Enable verbose output for debugging:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);

For HTTPS requests, consider setting:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);

Note: Disabling SSL verification can expose you to security risks, so use it only for testing purposes.

By understanding the basics of cURL and how to use it effectively, you can perform robust HTTP requests for web scraping and other applications.

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