curl POST format for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS

Question

When I use curl via POST and set CURLOPT_POSTFIELD do I have to urlencode or any special format?

for example: If I want to post 2 fields, first and last:

first=John&last=Smith 

what is the exact code/format that should be used with curl?

$ch=curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data); $reply=curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); 

Answer 1

In case you are sending a string, urlencode() it. Otherwise if array, it should be key=>value paired and the Content-type header is automatically set to multipart/form-data.

Also, you don't have to create extra functions to build the query for your arrays, you already have that:

$query = http_build_query($data, '', '&');