PHP - Posting JSON via file_get_contents

Question

I am trying to POST JSON content to a remote REST endpoint, however the 'content' value appears to be empty on delivery. All other headers etc are being received correctly, and the web service tests successfully with a browser based test client.

Is there a problem with my syntax below where I specify the 'content' field?

$data = array("username" => "duser", "firstname" => "Demo", "surname" => "User", "email" => "[email protected]");    $data_string = json_encode($data);  $result = file_get_contents('http://test.com/api/user/create', null, stream_context_create(array( 'http' => array( 'method' => 'POST', 'header' => array('Content-Type: application/json'."\r\n" . 'Authorization: username:key'."\r\n" . 'Content-Length: ' . strlen($data_string) . "\r\n"), 'content' => $data_string) ) ));  echo $result; 

Answer 1

This is the code I always use and it looks pretty similar (though this is of course for x-www-form-urlencoded). Perhaps your username:key needs to be base64_encode'd.

function file_post_contents($url, $data, $username = null, $password = null) {     $postdata = http_build_query($data);      $opts = array('http' =>         array(             'method'  => 'POST',             'header'  => 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',             'content' => $postdata         )     );      if($username && $password)     {         $opts['http']['header'] = ("Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password"));     }      $context = stream_context_create($opts);     return file_get_contents($url, false, $context); } 

Answer 2

The question was about json, why the accepted answer is about x-www-form?

Json has many cool stuff to struggle about, like utf8_encode

function my_utf8_encode(array $in): array {     foreach ($in as $key => $record) {         if (is_array($record)) {             $in[$key] = my_utf8_encode($record);         } else {             $in[$key] = utf8_encode($record);         }     }      return $in; }   function file_post_contents(string $url, array $data, string $username = null, string $password = null) {     $data     = my_utf8_encode($data);     $postdata = json_encode($data);     if (is_null($postdata)) {         throw new \Exception('decoding params');     }      $opts = array('http' =>         array(             'method'  => 'POST',             'header'  => 'Content-type: application/json',             'content' => $postdata         )     );      if (!is_null($username) && !is_null($password)) {         $opts['http']['header'] .= "Authorization: Basic " . base64_encode("$username:$password");     }      $context = stream_context_create($opts);      try {         $response = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);     } catch (\ErrorException $ex) {          throw new \Exception($ex->getMessage(), $ex->getCode(), $ex->getPrevious());     }     if ($response === false) {          throw new \Exception();     }      return $response; }