cvsouth/http

Simple HTTP requests using pure PHP

1.0.6 2021-02-16 19:46 UTC

proprietary

• Colin South

README

This package provides HTTP requests in pure PHP, without any additional dependencies such as ext-curl or over-engineered solutions like Guzzle, and makes handling Exceptions simple too.

Installation

composer require cvsouth/http

Usage

Basic Requests

GET

The package makes basic HTTP request ultra simple:

$response = http_get($url);

POST

For POST data you can either pass raw string data or an associative array to be encoded as form data:

$response = http_post($url, 'data');
// or
$response = http_post($url, ['key' => 'value']);

Stream Response

GET

$stream = http_get_stream($url);

// do something with the stream...

POST

$stream = http_post_stream($url, ['key' => 'value']);

// do something with the stream...

Specifying Additional Headers

You can specify additional request headers by passing them as an associative array as the next parameter:

GET

$response = http_get($url, ['Pragma' => 'no-cache']);

$stream = http_get_stream($url, ['Pragma' => 'no-cache']);

POST

$response = http_post($url, ['key' => 'value'], ['Pragma' => 'no-cache']);

$stream = http_post_stream($url, ['key' => 'value'], ['Pragma' => 'no-cache']);

Reading Response Headers

You can access the response headers through a reference parameter as key value pairs in an associative array:

GET

$response = http_get($url, null, $response_headers);

print_r($response_headers);

$stream = http_get_stream($url, null, $response_headers);

print_r($response_headers);

// do something with the stream...

POST

$response = http_post($url, ['key' => 'value'], null, $response_headers);

print_r($response_headers);

$stream = http_post_stream($url, ['key' => 'value'], null, $response_headers);

print_r($response_headers);

// do something with the stream...

Accessing Specific Headers

You can also access specific response headers using http_response_header. The first parameter takes the header name (case insensitive). The second parameter is the array of headers or you can pass a stream:

$response = http_get($url, null, $response_headers);

$content_type = http_response_header('Content-Type', $response_headers);

$response = http_get_stream($url);

$content_type = http_response_header('Content-Type', $stream);

// do something with stream...

Response Download

As well as using this package to read from HTTP endpoints, we also have some helper functions for returning our own response. http_download_headers can be used to set the headers on your response to force a download in the user's browser. The function takes three parameters; $name, $mime and $size:

$file_path = '...';
$file = fopen($file_path, 'r');

$file_name = basename($file_path);
$file_mime = mime_content_type($file_path);
$file_size = filesize($file_path);

http_download_headers($file_name, $file_mime, $file_size);

fpassthru($file);

Response Proxy

You can also use this package to easily pass on a response from elsewhere to your own response, allowing you to proxy external resources exactly. This function will use an underlying stream to forward on the request efficiently:

GET

forward_http_get($url);

POST

forward_http_post($url, ['key' => 'value']);

Handling Exceptions

If any exceptions occur during HTTP request a HttpException will be thrown with of either sub-type RequestException or ResponseException. RequestException means there was something wrong with your request and you may get this if the url you are requesting does not exist. ResponseException denotes that a status other than 200 was received and may of type InformationalResponseException, RedirectionResponseException, ClientErrorResponseException, ServerErrorResponseException.

The RequestException object has the methods getMethod(), getRequestData() and getRequestHeaders(). The ResponseException object also has these methods and in addition it has getResponseStatusCode() and getResponseHeaders(). It is up to you to decide how specific you want your error catching to be:

try
{
  $response = http_get($bad_url);
}
catch(HttpException $e)
{
  // if anything goes wrong...
}

try
{
  $response = http_get($url);
}
catch(RequestException $e)
{
  // handle request exception...
}
catch(ResponseException $e)
{
  // handle response exception...
}

Notes

To use this package allow_url_fopen in php.ini must be set to on, which it is by default.