Next, we’ve set the CURLOPT_POST option to TRUE to set the request method to HTTP POST. Next, we’ve used the http_build_query function to prepare a URL-encoded query string. The $fields variable holds an array of values that we need to submit as POST data. In fact, it works similarly to submitting a form with the POST method. In the above example, we assume that we need to submit a request with the HTTP POST method. $fields_string = http_build_query($fields) Ĭurl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields_string) Go ahead and create the curl_read_file.php file with the following contents. This is accomplished by a cURL GET request, which we’ll discuss in this section.

Reading or downloading remote files is one of the most common use cases for cURL. In this section, we’ll build real-world examples to demonstrate various cURL functions in PHP. Apart from HTTP and HTTPS, the libcurl library also supports protocols like FTP, Gopher, Telnet, DICT, File, and LDAP.įrom the next section onwards, we'll go through a couple of real-world examples to demonstrate how you can use cURL functions in PHP. In fact, it leverages the libcurl library, created by Daniel Stenberg, which allows you to connect to and communicate with many different types of servers with many different types of protocols. In this article, though, we’re going to discuss the cURL extension in detail, with real-world examples.ĬURL stands for client URLs, and it’s a library which allows you to send and receive information with the URL syntax. On the other hand, you can also use sockets to implement client-server communication. One of the easiest ways is to use the file_get_contents function to read remote files. In PHP, there are different methods you can use to connect and communicate with different types of servers.

Whether it’s calling third-party REST APIs to fetch data or downloading resources from an external website, you want a library which allows you to do it effortlessly. Often you need to communicate with external websites in your day-to-day PHP development. Today, we’re going to explore the cURL extension in PHP, which allows you to make HTTP requests from your code.

How to install curl in hsphere