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curl_getinfo> <curl_error
Last updated: Fri, 02 Jan 2009

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curl_exec

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.2, PHP 5)

curl_execPerform a cURL session

Description

mixed curl_exec ( resource $ch )

Execute the given cURL session.

This function should be called after initializing a cURL session and all the options for the session are set.

Parameters

ch

A cURL handle returned by curl_init().

Return Values

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure. However, if the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option is set, it will return the result on success, FALSE on failure.

Examples

Example #1 Fetching a web page

<?php
// create a new cURL resource
$ch curl_init();

// set URL and other appropriate options
curl_setopt($chCURLOPT_URL"http://www.example.com/");
curl_setopt($chCURLOPT_HEADER0);

// grab URL and pass it to the browser
curl_exec($ch);

// close cURL resource, and free up system resources
curl_close($ch);
?>



curl_getinfo> <curl_error
Last updated: Fri, 02 Jan 2009
 
add a note add a note User Contributed Notes
curl_exec
Mark Omohundro, ajamyajax.com
14-Nov-2008 06:09
Just a simple curl_exec() example with a twist: I use the familiar http response status code returned from curl_getinfo() to put either data, or a custom error message + curl_error() into a single string.  I find this useful when the response ends up in a <div> or <span> tag.

<?php
curl_setopt
($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
...

$output = curl_exec($ch);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);

if (
$output === false || $info['http_code'] != 200) {
 
$output = "No cURL data returned for $url [". $info['http_code']. "]";
  if (
curl_error($ch))
   
$output .= "\n". curl_error($ch);
  }
else {
 
// 'OK' status; format $output data if necessary here:
 
...
}
// then return or display the single string $output
?>
eljunior AT inf ufsm br
29-Sep-2008 09:43
Well put, lmshad!

I just added this method:

<?php

   
// activates POST and set post data
   
public static function addPostData($data) {
       
self::$options[CURLOPT_POST] = true;
       
self::$options[CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS] = $data;
    }

?>
lmshad at wp dot pl dot foo dot bar
29-Jul-2008 05:14
example:
   echo CurlTool::fetchContent('www.onet.pl');
   CurlTool::downloadFile('http://download.gadu-gadu.pl/gg77.exe', 'c:/');

<?php
error_reporting
(E_STRICT | E_ALL);
class
CurlTool {
    public static
$userAgents = array(
       
'FireFox3' => 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; pl; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0',
       
'GoogleBot' => 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)',
       
'IE7' => 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)',
       
'Netscape' => 'Mozilla/4.8 [en] (Windows NT 6.0; U)',
       
'Opera' => 'Opera/9.25 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)'
       
);
    public static
$options = array(
       
CURLOPT_USERAGENT => 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; pl; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0',
       
CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER => true,
       
CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE => '',
       
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true
       
);
           
    private static
$proxyServers = array();
    private static
$proxyCount = 0;
    private static
$currentProxyIndex = 0;
       
    public static function
addProxyServer($url) {
       
self::$proxyServers[] = $url;
        ++
self::$proxyCount;   
    }
   
    public static function
fetchContent($url, $verbose = false) {
        if ((
$curl = curl_init($url)) == false) {
            throw new
Exception("curl_init error for url $url.");
        }
       
        if (
self::$proxyCount > 0) {
           
$proxy = self::$proxyServers[self::$currentProxyIndex++ % self::$proxyCount];
           
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
            if (
$verbose === true) {
                echo
"Reading $url [Proxy: $proxy] ... ";
            }
        } else if (
$verbose === true) {
            echo
"Reading $url ... ";   
        }
       
       
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
       
curl_setopt_array($curl, self::$options);
               
       
$content = curl_exec($curl);
        if (
$content === false) {
            throw new
Exception("curl_exec error for url $url.");
        }
       
       
curl_close($curl);
        if (
$verbose === true) {
            echo
"Done.\n";
        }
       
       
$content = preg_replace('#\n+#', ' ', $content);
       
$content = preg_replace('#\s+#', ' ', $content);
       
        return
$content;
    }
   
    public static function
downloadFile($url, $fileName, $verbose = false) {
        if ((
$curl = curl_init($url)) == false) {
            throw new
Exception("curl_init error for url $url.");
        }
       
        if (
self::$proxyCount > 0) {
           
$proxy = self::$proxyServers[self::$currentProxyIndex++ % self::$proxyCount];
           
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
            if (
$verbose === true) {
                echo
"Downloading $url [Proxy: $proxy] ... ";
            }
        } else if (
$verbose === true) {
            echo
"Downloading $url ... ";   
        }
       
       
curl_setopt_array($curl, self::$options);
       
        if (
substr($fileName, -1) == '/') {
           
$targetDir = $fileName;
           
$fileName = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'c_');
        }
        if ((
$fp = fopen($fileName, "wb")) === false) {
            throw new
Exception("fopen error for filename $fileName");
        }
       
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
       
       
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, true);
        if (
curl_exec($curl) === false) {
           
fclose($fp);
           
unlink($fileName);
            throw new
Exception("curl_exec error for url $url.");
        } elseif (isset(
$targetDir)) {
           
$eurl = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);
           
preg_match('#^.*/(.+)$#', $eurl, $match);
           
fclose($fp);
           
rename($fileName, "$targetDir{$match[1]}");
           
$fileName = "$targetDir{$match[1]}";
        } else {
           
fclose($fp);
        }
       
       
curl_close($curl);
        if (
$verbose === true) {
            echo
"Done.\n";
        }
        return
$fileName;
    }   
}
?>
alan at forsyth dot cz
06-Jun-2008 10:59
Great class Roman - just one fix:

Replace the following line:
<?php
if (isset($params['host']) && $params['host'])      $header[]="Host: ".$host;
?>

with this:
<?php
if (isset($params['host']) && $params['host'])      $header[]="Host: " . $params['host'];
?>

CURL automatically creates the host parameter (since it is required for HTTP/1.1 requests), so you don't need to set it. But if you created a custom host parameter, the above bug would cause a '400 Bad Request' response due to invalid host specified.

Also when copying and pasting the class code, make sure that no line breaks occur (for example in the $header and $user_agent definitions etc.). It will still be valid PHP, but the HTTP request will not be valid, and you may get a '400 Bad Request' response from the server.

It took me a little playing around with an HTTP Sniffer before I finally got an HTTP POST request fully working!

Thanks,
Alan
roman dot ivasyuk at gmail dot com
16-Jan-2008 12:11
<?php
class CurlRequest
{
    private
$ch;
   
/**
     * Init curl session
     *
     * $params = array('url' => '',
     *                    'host' => '',
     *                   'header' => '',
     *                   'method' => '',
     *                   'referer' => '',
     *                   'cookie' => '',
     *                   'post_fields' => '',
     *                    ['login' => '',]
     *                    ['password' => '',]     
     *                   'timeout' => 0
     *                   );
     */               
   
public function init($params)
    {
       
$this->ch = curl_init();
       
$user_agent = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Windows NT 5.1; ru; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9'
;
       
$header = array(
       
"Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,
text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5"
,
       
"Accept-Language: ru-ru,ru;q=0.7,en-us;q=0.5,en;q=0.3",
       
"Accept-Charset: windows-1251,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7",
       
"Keep-Alive: 300");
        if (isset(
$params['host']) && $params['host'])      $header[]="Host: ".$host;
        if (isset(
$params['header']) && $params['header']) $header[]=$params['header'];
       
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER , 1 );
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_VERBOSE , 1 );
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_HEADER , 1 );
       
        if (
$params['method'] == "HEAD") @curl_setopt($this -> ch,CURLOPT_NOBODY,1);
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header );
        if (
$params['referer'])    @curl_setopt ($this -> ch , CURLOPT_REFERER, $params['referer'] );
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);
        if (
$params['cookie'])    @curl_setopt ($this -> ch , CURLOPT_COOKIE, $params['cookie']);

        if (
$params['method'] == "POST" )
        {
           
curl_setopt( $this -> ch, CURLOPT_POST, true );
           
curl_setopt( $this -> ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $params['post_fields'] );
        }
        @
curl_setopt( $this -> ch, CURLOPT_URL, $params['url']);
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0 );
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0 );
        if (isset(
$params['login']) & isset($params['password']))
            @
curl_setopt($this -> ch , CURLOPT_USERPWD,$params['login'].':'.$params['password']);
        @
curl_setopt ( $this -> ch , CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $params['timeout']);
    }
   
   
/**
     * Make curl request
     *
     * @return array  'header','body','curl_error','http_code','last_url'
     */
   
public function exec()
    {
       
$response = curl_exec($this->ch);
       
$error = curl_error($this->ch);
       
$result = array( 'header' => '',
                        
'body' => '',
                        
'curl_error' => '',
                        
'http_code' => '',
                        
'last_url' => '');
        if (
$error != "" )
        {
           
$result['curl_error'] = $error;
            return
$result;
        }
       
       
$header_size = curl_getinfo($this->ch,CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE);
       
$result['header'] = substr($response, 0, $header_size);
       
$result['body'] = substr( $response, $header_size );
       
$result['http_code'] = curl_getinfo($this -> ch,CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
       
$result['last_url'] = curl_getinfo($this -> ch,CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);
        return
$result;
    }
}
?>

Example of use:
<?php
..........
try
        {           
           
$params = array('url' => 'http://www.google.com',
           
'host' => '',
           
'header' => '',
           
'method' => 'GET', // 'POST','HEAD'
           
'referer' => '',
           
'cookie' => '',
           
'post_fields' => '', // 'var1=value&var2=value
           
'timeout' => 20
           
);
           
           
$this->curl->init($params);
           
$result = $this->curl->exec();
            if (
$result['curl_error'])    throw new Exception($result['curl_error']);
            if (
$result['http_code']!='200')    throw new Exception("HTTP Code = ".$result['http_code']);
            if (!
$result['body'])        throw new Exception("Body of file is empty");
            ...............
        }
        catch (
Exception $e)
        {
                    echo
$e->getMessage();
        }
?>
aeon tech at g mail dot com
19-Dec-2007 04:14
// easy way to parse raw http headers
function parse_http_headers($rawheaders)
{
    $lines = explode("\n",$rawheaders);
    if(substr($lines[0],0,5) == 'HTTP/')
    {
        $response = array_shift($lines);
    }
    foreach($lines as $line)
    {
        preg_match("/^(.+?):\s+(.+)$/",trim($line),$matches);
        $headers[$matches[1]] = $matches[2];
        unset($matches);
    }
    return $headers;
}
me at lawrencemok dot com
04-Dec-2007 07:52
Note that when you use CURL to POST things....e.g:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "string=This is a string");

The data part (e.g. "This is a string") inside the 3rd parameter should be applied with urlencode()

Otherwise, if you intend to send a string like "%2F", you will end up with a "/" on the receiving end, which can cause troubles. (e.g. serialize() data cannot be unserialize() becase of the change in string length).
cameron at bulock dot com
22-Oct-2007 05:14
A slightly more efficient way to return the HTTP code would be to use the curl_getinfo function

    function getHttpResponseCode($url)
    {
        $ch = @curl_init($url);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, TRUE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, TRUE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, FALSE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
        $status = array();
        $status = @curl_getinfo($ch);
        return $status['http_code'];
    }
Florian Holzhauer
12-Sep-2007 09:58
If you use apache2+mod_chroot with php5, add

LoadFile /lib/libnss_dns.so.2

to your mod_chroot config - this should resolver problems.
shanto at ultimawebsolutions dot com
17-Aug-2007 04:01
A function to retrieve the status code of an HTTP request using CURL:

    function getHttpResponseCode($url)
    {
        $ch = @curl_init($url);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, TRUE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, TRUE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, FALSE);
        @curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
        $status = array();
        $response = @curl_exec($ch);
        preg_match('/HTTP\/.* ([0-9]+) .*/', $response, $status);
        return $status[1];
    }
test at test dot com
13-Aug-2007 01:43
If you see a "0" at the end of the output, you might want to switch to HTTP/1.0:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, 1.0);
lukasl at ackleymedia dot com
06-Oct-2006 02:52
Thank you for sharing this.  I was wondering why my result was 1.

To get around this in a safe way, this is how I check if the result is valid.

$ch = curl_init(); /// initialize a cURL session
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$xmlResponse = curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close ($ch);

if (!is_string($xmlResponse) || !strlen($xmlResponse)) {
    return $this->_set_error( "Failure Contacting Server" );
} else {
    return $xmlResponse;
}
04-Oct-2006 08:41
Be careful when using curl_exec() and the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option. According to the manual and assorted documentation:
Set CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER to TRUE to return the transfer as a string of the return value of curl_exec() instead of outputting it out directly.

When retrieving a document with no content (ie. 0 byte file), curl_exec() will return bool(true), not an empty string. I've not seen any mention of this in the manual.

Example code to reproduce this:
<?php

   
// fictional URL to an existing file with no data in it (ie. 0 byte file)
   
$url = 'http://www.example.com/empty_file.txt';

   
$curl = curl_init();
   
   
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
   
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
   
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);

   
// execute and return string (this should be an empty string '')
   
$str = curl_exec($curl);

   
curl_close($curl);

   
// the value of $str is actually bool(true), not empty string ''
   
var_dump($str);

?>
Jørgen Tjernø
08-Mar-2005 02:12
If you've got problems with curl_exec not working, you should rather check curl_errno and curl_error than using commandline curl, like so:

(since this is easier, and also allows you to check for errors runtime, which is a vital part of any well-design piece of code. ;)

<?php
$creq
= curl_init();
curl_setopt($creq, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.foo.internal");
curl_exec($creq);

/* To quote curl_errno documentation:
     Returns the error number for the last cURL operation on the resource ch, or 0 (zero) if no error occurred. */
if (curl_errno($creq)) {
    print
curl_error($creq);
} else {
   
curl_close($creq);
}
?>
landon at phazeforward dot com
01-Dec-2004 11:43
If your curl installation is not compiled with SSL support you will beat your head against a wall when trying to figure out why curl_exec() is failing to fail or do anything else ...

If you run into a situation where your call to curl_exec is not returning anything you should try the same call with the command line curl
fifa_2k [-at-] sina [-dot-] com
29-Oct-2004 06:29
With php 4.3.9 or higher,you can upload file to ftp server on win32 system
<?php
function curl_upload($src) {
   
$fn = basename($src);
   
$dest = "ftp://user:passwd@server.com/incoming/$fn";
   
$ch = curl_init();
   
   
$fp = fopen($src,"r");
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_UPLOAD, 1);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 300);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEOUTED, 300);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $dest);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILE, $fp);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize($src));
   
curl_exec($ch);
   
fclose ($fp);
   
$errorMsg = '';
   
$errorMsg = curl_error($ch);
   
$errorNumber = curl_errno($ch);
   
curl_close($ch);
    return
$errorNumber;
}
?>
lower version php (I tried on php 4.3.3) on win32 can't do this and may cause php crash even you use CURLOPT_READFUNCTION.
sybren at thirdtower dot com
01-Jul-2003 02:00
If you see a "0" at the end of the output, you might want to switch to HTTP/1.0:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, 1.0);
nagyp at hunaxon dot hu
27-Apr-2003 12:22
fyi:
It returns false if there's an error while executing the curl session, no matter how CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER is set.
colins at infofind dot com
24-Apr-2002 11:42
Checking the source, curl_exec seems to return FALSE on failure, TRUE on success (unless CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER is set 1, and then it returns the returned data).
ppruett at webengr dot com
01-Mar-2002 03:06
fyi - if you are having problems getting a
webpage to display in your webpage with
curl_setopt(CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
due to version bugginess perhaps,
you may can use output control functions
like this to show a web page
inside your webpage:

<html><head><title>whatever</title></head>
<body>
<script language="php">
$ch
= curl_init("http://www.cocoavillage.com/");
// use output buffering instead of returntransfer -itmaybebuggy
ob_start();
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$retrievedhtml = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
// if you intend to print this page with meta tags, better clear out any expiration tag
//    $result = preg_replace('/(?s)<meta http-equiv="Expires"[^>]*>/i', '', $retrievedhtml);
// for now I just want what is between the body tags so need
// somehow cut the header footer    
$bodyandend = stristr($retrievedhtml,"<body");
// not needed- $positionstartbodystring = strlen($retrievedhtml)-strlen($bodyandend);
$positionendstartbodytag = strpos($bodyandend,">") + 1;
// got to change all to lowercase temporarily
// because end body may be upperlowercasemix
// to bad strirstr does not exist
$temptofindposition=strtolower($bodyandend);
$positionendendbodytag=strpos($temptofindposition,"</body");
//now to get the endbetween body tags
$grabbedbody=substr($bodyandend,
    
$positionendstartbodytag,
          
$positionendendbodytag);
//be sure to fix syntax broke by display on phpwebsite... like above line
print("$grabbedbody");
</script>
</body></html>

tada
sharky at im dot net dot ua
22-Nov-2001 01:08
If You want to hide result which return curl_exec

Use bufeered output.
For example:
-----------------------
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,"http://url.com/index.php");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "a=3&b=5");
//--- Start buffering
ob_start();
curl_exec ($ch);
//--- End buffering and clean output
ob_end_clean();

curl_close ($ch);
------------------

maybe it help somebody :))

----------
Best Regards
  Sharky
csaba at alum dot mit dot edu
22-May-2001 08:06
If you retrieve a web page and print it (so you can see it in your browser), and the page has an expiration, this expiration now applies to MyProgram.php and next time your program/page is called, even if it's grabbing a different web page, it will show what it just displayed.  In Netscape you can get rid of this by going into Edit, Options, Advanced, Cache, and clear out the Disk Cache.  But this is really annoying after short order.  The following prevents the above scenario:

<?php
function GetCurlPage ($pageSpec) {
   
$ch = curl_init($pageSpec);
   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
   
$tmp = curl_exec ($ch);
   
curl_close ($ch);
// if you intend to print this page, better clear out expiration tag
   
$tmp = preg_replace('/(?s)<meta http-equiv="Expires"[^>]*>/i', '', $tmp);
    return
$tmp;
}
?>

curl_getinfo> <curl_error
Last updated: Fri, 02 Jan 2009
 
 
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