PHP Helpers: curl_http_request

cURL is one very handy program and library, I love having access to in PHP. It has a ton of options though, and I can never seem to remember to flip the right knobs without reviewing the options list. 99% of the time I just want a simple function that does the right thing when making an HTTP request. So here’s the new PHP Helpers function that sets up reasonable defaults for making HTTP requests using cURL:

if ( !function_exists( 'curl_http_request' ) ) {
    function curl_http_request( $url, $req = 'GET', $arg = array( ) ) {
        $body       = '';
        $cookies    = array( );
        $err_no     = 0;
        $err_msg    = '';
        $headers    = array( );
        $info       = array( );

        $opt = array(
            'connect_timeout'   => 5,
            'cookies'           => array( ),
            'follow_location'   => TRUE,
            'http_headers'      => array( ),
            'max_redirects'     => 5,
            'timeout'           => 15,
            'password'          => '',
            'post_fields'       => array( ),
            'user_agent'        => 'PHP curl_http_get',
            'username'          => '',
            'verify_ssl'        => TRUE
        );
        foreach ( $opt as $k => $v ) {
            if ( isset( $arg[$k] ) ) {
                $opt[$k] = $arg[$k];
            }
        }

        $curl_opt = array(
            CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER     => TRUE,
            CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT  => $opt['connect_timeout'],
            CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST   => $req,
            CURLOPT_ENCODING        => '',
            CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION  => $opt['follow_location'],
            CURLOPT_HEADER          => TRUE,
            CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS       => $opt['max_redirects'],
            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER  => TRUE,
            CURLOPT_TIMEOUT         => $opt['timeout'],
            CURLOPT_USERAGENT       => $opt['user_agent'],
        );

        if (
            is_array( $opt['cookies'] )
            && count( $opt['cookies'] ) > 0
        ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_COOKIE] = implode( ';', $opt['cookies'] );
        }

        if ( !empty( $opt['username'] ) ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_USERPWD] = $opt['username'] . ':' . $opt['password'];
        }

        if (
            is_array( $opt['post_fields'] )
            && count( $opt['post_fields'] ) > 0
        ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_POST] = TRUE;
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS] = $opt['post_fields'];
        }

        if ( $req == 'HEAD' ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_NOBODY] = TRUE;
        }

        if (
            is_array( $opt['http_headers'] )
            && count( $opt['http_headers'] ) > 0
        ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER] = $opt['http_headers'];
        }

        if ( $opt['verify_ssl'] === FALSE ) {
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER] = FALSE;
            $curl_opt[CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST] = 0;
        }

        $curl = curl_init( $url );
        curl_setopt_array( $curl, $curl_opt );

        $body       = curl_exec( $curl );
        $err_no     = curl_errno( $curl );
        $err_msg    = curl_error( $curl );
        $info       = curl_getinfo( $curl );
        curl_close( $curl );

        $header_string = trim( substr( $body, 0, $info['header_size'] ) );
        $body = substr( $body, $info['header_size'] );

        if ( strpos( $header_string, "\r\n\r\n" ) !== FALSE ) {
            $header_string = end( explode( "\r\n\r\n", $header_string ) );
            $header_string = str_replace( "\r\n", "\n", $header_string );
        }

        foreach ( explode( "\n", $header_string ) as $line ) {
            list( $k, $v ) = explode( ':', $line, 2 );
            if ( empty( $v ) ) {
                continue;
            }

            if ( strtolower( $k ) == 'set-cookie' ) {
                $cookies[] = trim( $v );
            } else {
                $headers[$k] = trim( $v );
            }
        }

        return array(
            'body'      => $body,
            'err_no'    => $err_no,
            'err_msg'   => $err_msg,
            'headers'   => $headers,
            'cookies'   => $cookies,
            'info'      => $info
        );
    } // function curl_http_request
}

It’s a bit longer that then other PHP Helper functions :-) .

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