How do I connect to a script using POST method?

Gary_King

How do I have my PHP script send data to a site using the POST method? For instance, so that I could have my script automatically login for me at a site that only allows POST and not GET, and then grab the data that it sees after it logs in.

Thanks in advance!

MaxD

You can only POST data through I form (I believe)

You'd use this to set up a form to post data

<form action="http://www.example.com/somescript.php" method="POST">

then just include a couple fields with the SAME EXACT NAME as what the script that your posting to is expecting. This is case-sensitive for most languages.

mtmosier

Personally I use the curl functions to do this. You could also do it manually with fopen/fsockopen URL=http://php-programming-goodies.euweb.cz/how-to-post-raw-data-to-a-script-using-php.html[/URL]. Or you could use a pre-made php class such as snoopy to do it. (I never tried snoopy, but it says it does post, so...)

terfle

I don't think it is possible to have php login into a form and wait for the page to load then grab information...I could be wrong but it doesn't sound very php-ish.

AstroTeg

Check out [man]curl[/man]. You'll definitely want:

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postdata);

This will tell curl that it'll have to submit post data. Then you just use an associative array for $postdata containing the keys and values you wish to submit.

AstroTeg

Originally posted by terfle
I don't think it is possible to have php login into a form and wait for the page to load then grab information...I could be wrong but it doesn't sound very php-ish.

Yes, this can be done with curl. I've done it with HTTP basic authentication and generic HTML form logins. You have to make multiple requests. One request to submit the log in info. Then a second request to go to the page you want. To get fancy, you'll want to add some code that checks if the login was successful or not.