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HTTP Client

The HTTP client is a simple yet very powerful utility for making HTTP requests.

Installation

To install this package

Sending Requests

Get Request

To send a GET request

The full list of options are detailed below.

Head Request

To make HEAD request, where the body of the request is not fetched.

Post Request

To send a POST request. In REST terms post requests are used to create a record.

To upload files using a post request.

Put Request

To send a PUT request. In REST terms put requests are used to modify a record with complete data (overwriting).

Patch Request

To send a PATCH request. In REST terms patch requests are used to modify an existing record with partial data.

Delete Request

To send a DELETE request.

HTTP Request Options

The available options when making requests are

• query: appends vars to the query. e.g ['api_token' => '1234-1234-1234-1234']
• userAgent: the name of the user agent to use e.g. 'originPHP'
• referer: default null. The url of the referer e.g. 'https://www.example.com/search'
• redirect: default true. set to false to not follow redirects
• timeout: default timeout is 30 seconds
• cookieJar: default true. Persists cookies for instance. Set to false to not perist cookies. Pass a string with filename and path to save to and read cookies from. e.g. '/var/www/data/cookies.data'
• type: request and accept content type (json xml) e.g. 'json'
• auth: authtentication details. An array with username, password, and type (basic|digest|nltm)
• proxy: proxy server details. An array with proxy, username, password.
• curl: an array of curl options either string or constant e.g [CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST=>0, 'ssl_verifypeer'=>0]
• headers: an array of headers to set. e.g ['Accept' => 'application/json']
• cookies: an array of cookies to set. e.g. ['name' => 'value']
• fields: This option is for post/put/patch requests. Its an array of fields to be posted e.g. ['title' => 'Article #1','description' => 'An article']

Configuring the Http Client

You configure Http client so that you don't have to keep on passing options which makes code longer and more prone to errors.

This is particularly useful when working with multiple requests in an instance. Any options passed when creating the instance will be used as default for each request, unless you specify something else during the request.

Other options:

• userAgent
• timeout
• cookieJar
• type
• auth
• proxy
• referer
• headers
• cookies
• verbose

Exceptions (version ^2.0)

In 2.0 various exceptions have been added, and a HTTP protocol error handler has also been added. All exceptions from the http client extend the HttpClientException class.

Request Exceptions

In the event of connection issues (DNS, timeout etc), a ConnectionException will be thrown, and a TooManyRedirectsException will be thrown on redirect loops, and any other cURL error will trigger a generic RequestException.

HTTP Protocol Exceptions

By default any 4xx and 5xx errors will throw either ClientErrorException or ServerErrorException which both extend the HttpException class.

This behavior can be disabled by setting httpErrors to false when creating the Http instance.

To catch HTTP protocol errors

Working with Responses

When you make a HTTP request, a Response object is returned.

Cookies

By default cookies are persisted across all requests for the instance.

To change this behavior use the cookieJar option.

cURL Options

Occasionally, you might need to set additional cURL options, one example of this, is when there is an issue with SSL certificates. You can set cURL options with the CURLOPT constant or string version of it.

To set these as default for settings for all the requests, configure it when creating the Http instance.

Downloading a file

To download a file

Setting Cookies

To set a cookie

User Authentication

The available authentication types are basic, digest, nltm or any.

Using a Proxy

To send a HTTP request using a proxy server.