CurlRequests Class

This is a simple and easy to use class for making cURL calls in PHP. It attempts to abstract away many of the nuances of using the cURL functions and gives a consistent response in return to all calls (successful or not). Consumers of this class will get back a stdClass object with information on the success or it will throw an exception in the case of cURL error.

Features

• No extra dependencies
• Works with PHP 5.6+
• Easy to turn off SSL Verification for testing
• Quick setting of extra cURL options and default option overriding
• Easy to add custom headers (like Authentication tokens, different content-types etc.)
• POST data will also work with mbstring extension if enabled for use with UTF-8 encoding

Usage

This class is used in a static context and only provides two methods, GET and POST. Below is a quick example of how you can use this. Notice you don't need to look for false return values or deal with exceptions. If it is a cURL error, it will throw an exception with the cURL error message and number... simple.

try {
    // Typical GET request
    $result = CurlRequests::get('https://www.example.com');
} catch (Exception $e) {
    error_log("Yikes! cURL error {$e->getCode()} happened with message {$e->getMessage()}");
    return;
}


// If successful, $result will have a status_code and content property
if ($result->status_code === 200) {
    echo "Success! Here is your content {$result->content}";
}

It is very configurable. Here are some examples...

// Typical POST request (www-form-urlencoded)
$result = CurlRequests::post('https://www.example.com', 'hello=world');

// Oh need to post JSON?
$result = CurlRequests::post('https://www.example.com', '{"hello": "world"}', ["content-type" => "application/json"]);

// Need to pass an authentication bearer token during a GET request?
$result = CurlRequests::get('https://www.example.com', ['Authentication' => "Bearer 123456789"]);

NOTE: Based on the code you can easily add additional request methods if you like by setting a custom option CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST when making a POST request.

License

The CurlRequests class is software licensed under the MIT license.

Questions or to Report An Issue

If you would like to report an issue with this code, please email us.