HTTPRequest.php

Easy HTTP Requests with PHP

HTTPRequest simplifies cURL and fsockopen requests around Object-Oriented concepts. It serves as a superb foundation for PHP-based API integrations and allows a range of customization of headers, query parameters and automatically degrades to fsockopen when cURL is unavailable.

A Most Basic Request

Request www.google.com:

$http = new HTTPRequest('www.google.com');
$http -> execute();
echo $http -> getResponseText();
$http -> close();

Echoes:

<!doctype html><html itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/WebPage"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><meta name="description" content="Search the world&#39;s information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you&#39;re looking for."><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><meta itemprop="image" content="/images/google_favicon_128.png"><title>Google</title>

Nice!

Basic Google Maps Geocoding API Request

HTTPRequest is also great for making calls to 3rd-party APIs. Here's a Geocoding request to Google Maps:

$http = new HTTPRequest('maps.googleapis.com', '/maps/api/geocode/json');
$params = array(
  'address' => 'The Moon',
  'sensor' => false
);
$http -> setQueryParams($params);
$http -> execute();
echo $http -> getResponseText();
$http -> close();

And we get back some pretty JSON:

{
	"results" : [
	{
	 "address_components" : [
	    {
	       "long_name" : "Moon",
	       "short_name" : "Moon",
	       "types" : [ "route" ]
            },
...

In this case, the constructor took a second parameter (the uri) in addition to first property (which was the host name). The constructor can also take the port number, a boolean directing whether or not to use cURL if possible and the timeout in seconds.

public function __construct($host = null, $uri = '/', $port = 80, $useCurl = null, $timeout = 10)

For fans of chaining

Many of the HTTPRequest class' methods return the instance itself, enabling chaining (if you please).

$http = new HTTPRequest('maps.googleapis.com', '/maps/api/geocode/json');
$params = array('address'=>'The Moon','sensor'=>false);
echo $http -> setQueryParams($params) -> execute()  -> getResponseText();
$http -> close();

HTTPS/SSL Support

HTTPRequest also supports HTTPS/SSL for both cURL and fsockopen. For example, you can make calls to the Trello API in a snap:

$http = new HTTPRequest('api.trello.com', '/1/boards/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c', 443);
$params = array(
	'key' => '[YOUR_DEVELOPER_KEY]'
);
$http -> setQueryParams($params);
$http -> execute();
echo $http -> getResponseText();
$http -> close();

We get back some info about the Trello development board:

{"id":"4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c","name":"Trello Development","desc":"Trello board used by the Trello team to track work on Trello.  How meta!\n\nThe development of the Trello API is being tracked at https://trello.com/api\n\nThe development of Trello Mobile applications is being tracked at https://trello.com/mobile","closed":false,"idOrganization":"4e1452614e4b8698470000e0","url":"https://trello.com/board/trello-development/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c","prefs":{"voting":"public","permissionLevel":"public","invitations":"members","comments":"public"}}

stevedane / HTTPRequest