PHP curl issue - Trying to send XML post request

Question

I am attempting to make an xml post request which expects a response using curl to build the headers and content. Here is my code:

<?php
function post_xml($url, $xml) {
  $ch = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLINFO_HEADER_OUT, true);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, Array("Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8"));
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'myusername:mypassword');
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);

  $result = curl_exec($ch);
  $info = curl_getinfo($ch);
  curl_close($ch);
  return $result;
}

$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><testing><test type="integer">1</test></testing>';

$url = "http://example.com/api/test.php";
$result = post_xml($url, $xml);
echo "<pre>"; print_r($result); echo "</pre>";
?>

To view my outgoing request I use:

$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
echo($info['request_header']);

The resulting HTTP request that is sent is:

POST /api/test.php HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic pwmtJdCVwNEawdaODH
Host: example.com
Accept: */*
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 95

The content-length is 95, but then it shows none of the xml content below. This results in a 422 Unprocessable Entity error. Am I completely missing something? I expected to be able to see the XML in the request sent.

The issue must be with the remote API; your code is definitely moving data around. I tested it with a script that would just dump the raw postbody to a test file and return the hash of the request and it worked just fine. — Dereleased
– Dereleased, Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 15:26
WAIT! Are you viewing this in a browser? It might be hiding the XML from you! Try this instead of print_r: echo '<pre>', htmlentities($result), '</pre>'; — Dereleased
– Dereleased, Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 15:27
Sorry for not clarifying, the request I posted is the raw request. I think it may be an issue with the API that I'm trying to use, so I will get in touch with them. This has been driving me nuts all morning, but I'm exactly following their documentation. — Brian
– Brian, Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 15:29
Your function worked perfectly for me without me changing anything. Thank you very much! — James
– James, Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 14:07

CodeCaster · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-16 14:13:26Z

2

You haven't specified a fieldname for your XML content, so PHP has nowhere to assign it in the POST request. As the manual states:

This parameter can either be passed as a urlencoded string like 'para1=val1&para2=val2&...' or as an array with the field name as key and field data as value.

So try:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array('xml' => $xml));

Don't know if this is what your API is expecting, but it's one thing to look into.

As for displaying the XML, remember that browsers can/will interpret it as HTML, and any unknown tags will simply not be displayed. Try doing your output as:

echo "<pre>";
echo htmlspecialchars($result);
echo "</pre>";

and/or outputting header('Content-type: text/plain') so that the XML tags will be displayed as-is and not be interpreted as unknown html tags.

edited Nov 16, 2012 at 14:13

CodeCaster

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answered Jun 24, 2011 at 15:21

Marc B

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Comments

qbert220 · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-24 15:24:07Z

0

echo($info['request_header']);

will only show the header that was sent. It will not show the post data, so you should not see the XML string.

answered Jun 24, 2011 at 15:24

qbert220

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1 Comment

Brian Over a year ago

Is there any way to easily view the entire message sent?

Songyi Ma · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-10 21:02:57Z

0

It works when I removed the header line:

//curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, ...

Final code:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array('data' => $xml));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT, 1);

answered Jun 10, 2013 at 21:02

Songyi Ma

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