curl_setopt_array

In case that you need to read SSL page content from https with curl, this function can help you:

<?php

function get_web_page( $url,$curl_data )
{
    $options = array(
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,         // return web page
        CURLOPT_HEADER         => false,        // don't return headers
        CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,         // follow redirects
        CURLOPT_ENCODING       => "",           // handle all encodings
        CURLOPT_USERAGENT      => "spider",     // who am i
        CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER    => true,         // set referer on redirect
        CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120,          // timeout on connect
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 120,          // timeout on response
        CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS      => 10,           // stop after 10 redirects
        CURLOPT_POST            => 1,            // i am sending post data
           CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS     => $curl_data,    // this are my post vars
        CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => 0,            // don't verify ssl
        CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => false,        //
        CURLOPT_VERBOSE        => 1                //
    );

    $ch      = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt_array($ch,$options);
    $content = curl_exec($ch);
    $err     = curl_errno($ch);
    $errmsg  = curl_error($ch) ;
    $header  = curl_getinfo($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

  //  $header['errno']   = $err;
  //  $header['errmsg']  = $errmsg;
  //  $header['content'] = $content;
    return $header;
}

$curl_data = "var1=60&var2=test";
$url = "https://www.example.com";
$response = get_web_page($url,$curl_data);

print '<pre>';
print_r($response);

?>

If you are writing a mini API for your library, and if you are doing merging of options, remember to use the union operator (+) !

So something like this will definitely fail. This is because array_merge effectively resets all the keys in the array into running numbers:

<?php
function post($url, $options = array) {
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt_array($ch, array_merge(array(
        CURLOPT_HEADER => 1,
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
        .....
     )));
?>

Rather, this is the correct way of doing it:

<?php
function post($url, $options = array) {
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
        CURLOPT_HEADER => 1,
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
        .....
     ) + (array) $options);
?>

You might be tempted to use array_merge with arrays where CURLOPT constants are the keys, but beware.

<?php
array_merge([], [CURLOPT_FOO => "foo"], [CURLOPT_BAR => "bar"]);
?>

Since these constants are numeric, array_merge will happily reindex:

<?php
[0 => "foo", 1 => "bar"];
?>

You can use CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION  with a callback inside an object.  This makes is it easy to capture the headers for later use.  For example:

<?php
class Test
{
    public $headers;

    //...

    public function exec($opts)
    {
        $this->headers = array();
        $opts[CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION] = array($this, '_setHeader');
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt_array($ch, $opts);
        return curl_exec($ch);
    }

    private function _setHeader($ch, $header)
    {
        $this->headers[] = $header;
        return strlen($header);
    }

    
}

$test = new Test();
$opts = array(
   //... your curl opts here
);
$data = $test->exec($opts);
print_r($test->headers);
?>

...something like that

(This works in php v. 5.1.4)

Important note: the option CURLINFO_HEADER_OUT is *ignored* by curl_setopt_array(). You *must* use curl_setopt() to set this option.

(True in PHP v7.3.27 at least)

Once upon a time I've got an error like "Problem with the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?)". Since what I was doing was pretty much an administrative task with no actual security issues involved, I decided to disallow certificate validation and this is where the most interesting stuff began.

First I did it like this and it worked:

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);

Next I thought, "But hey, I don't want any hardcoded stuff here. Let's use it in a configurable way!". And so I did something like this:

// in configuration
$CURL_OPTIONS = array(CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => 0, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => 0);

...........

// in place of two direct calls from earlier
            curl_setopt_array($ch, $CURL_OPTIONS);

And I was so happy, there was no error anymore... and do you think I was happy for a long time? If so, then you're wrong. It stopped giving an error, while it didn't start to work!

I checked the actual data but they were allright. Then I thought: "Is it the curl_setopt_array() problem? Let's make it a cycle." The way it is mentioned in this help, actually.

            foreach ($CURL_OPTIONS as $name => $value)
            {
                curl_setopt($ch, $name, $value);
            }

And... it did not work the same way as with the curl_setopt_array() call. And the data were still allright...

So, if by chance you can't set CURL options with the curl_setopt_array() call, then now you know what to do and you know it is definitely not you who is to blame.

P.S.
By the way, the configuration used was:
Linux i-ween.com 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.73-2+deb7u3 x86_64
PHP Version 5.5.17

This function does not mix with `curl_file_create` (`CURLFile` object) and `CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS`. Took me forever to figure out, but essentially I was getting an "Invalid filename" PHP warning and the files weren't being sent. I was able to correct the issue in a matter like so:

curl_setopt_array($curl, $curlOpts);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postFields);

I removed the `$postFields` value from `$curlOpts` and set it separately using `curl_setopt`.

Starting in PHP 5.2.0, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION can't be set via curl_setopt_array() (or curl_setopt()) when either safe_mode is enabled or open_basedir is set.  In these cases, the order of CURLOPT_* settings in the array can be important.