PHP Classes and Curl

Question

To my smartest friends, I googled and tried everything. I am sure that this is just the late night not letting me see/understand the problem. I should mention that I am still in the process of switching to OOP from functional, and I this is my first time I was able to have curl enabled. :( So, feel free to critique any bad practices also..

<?php
class urlValidation
{
    public $content;
    public $validUrl;
    public function __construct($validUrl)
    {
        $this->content = $content;
        $this->validUrl = $validUrl;
        $this->getContents();
    }
    public function getContents()
    {
        $this->curlHandler = curl_init($this->validUrl);
        curl_setopt($this->curlHandler, CURLOPT_NOBODY, false);
        curl_setopt(CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, false); //changing false to true is the answer!
        $this->content = curl_exec($this->curlHandler);
        curl_close($this->curlHandler);
    }
}
?>

called from

$suggestUrl = 'http://www.google.com';
$validate = new urlValidation($suggestedUrl);

For all of the best of me, I cannot figure out why $this->content prints to the screen without being called. I just simply want that returned HTML to be stored in a variable and not returned/printed/appended to the document.

Show us how did you initialize your class and call its methods — Alexander Larikov
– Alexander Larikov, Commented Sep 6, 2012 at 6:35
Could you please specify what means "prints to screen without being called" - what does it print? As well as where have you instantiated the new object of that class. Also, you're setting $this->content=$content in the constructor, which doesn't make a lot of sense - where does $content come from? And lastly, it's a good practice to stick to conventions, so why not start a class's name with a capital letter. — Havelock
– Havelock, Commented Sep 6, 2012 at 6:36
@havelock I mean like reads the file's contents and appends it to the dom... it's as if an echo $this->content is happening but its NOT! — Jared Drake
– Jared Drake, Commented Sep 6, 2012 at 6:37
lol sorry for the pure code rage @havelock. As for your OOP critique, I'm not sure why the $this->content = $content is in the constructor. Those freaking mounds of books and tutorials always do it lol. I thought it was a local inheritance and scope thing, but maybe not. — Jared Drake
– Jared Drake, Commented Sep 6, 2012 at 6:50

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 19:27:51Z

3

PHP documentation explains it all ;)

curl_exec returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure. However, if the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option is set, it will return the result on success, FALSE on failure.

So before $this->content = curl_exec($this->curlHandler); you need to add this

curl_setopt($this->curlHandler, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 19:27

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answered Sep 6, 2012 at 6:39

Alexander Larikov

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6 Comments

Jared Drake Over a year ago

It still returns and prints the html to the second page without being called. :/ lol All I want is the returned html saved into a variable.

Ron van der Heijden Over a year ago

@JaredDrake All I want is the returned html saved into a variable. $this->content = file_get_contents('http://google.com'); will result the same?

Alexander Larikov Over a year ago

@JaredDrake sorry, my bad, I forgot to add $this->curlHandler as first parameter for curl_setopt, and option should be true. See edited answer.

Jared Drake Over a year ago

@Alexander Larikov I already adjusted that in for you when you gave me the original answer and it didn't work :/

Jared Drake Over a year ago

@Alexander Larikov wait a minute... You're my freaking hero... Changing that to true did exactly what I wanted. GOD bless you my friend. Thank you so much. :)

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