Receive JSON Data With PHP CURL (Simple Example)

Welcome to a tutorial on how to receive JSON data with PHP CURL. Are you expecting to receive some JSON data with a CURL call?

To receive JSON data with PHP CURL, simply use the json_decode() function to turn the JSON string back into an object or array:

  • $ch = curl_init();
  • curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://site.com");
  • curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
  • $result = json_decode(curl_exec($ch));
  • curl_close($ch);

That covers the quick basics, but let us walk through a detailed example – Read on!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

DOWNLOAD & NOTES

Here is the download link to the example code, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything.

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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JSON DATA WITH PHP CURL

All right, let us now get into an example of receiving and decoding JSON data with PHP CURL.

 

DUMMY JSON DATA

1-dummy.php
<?php
$data = [
  "name" => "Jon Doe",
  "email" => "jon@doe.com",
  "colors" => ["Red", "Green", "Blue"]
];
echo json_encode($data);

Nothing to see here. Just a dummy script for testing, to output a dummy JSON encoded string.

 

 

CURL RECEIVE JSON DATA

2-fetch-json.php
<?php
// (A) CURL FETCH
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost/1-dummy.php");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
 
// (B) RESULTS
// (B1) ERROR
if (curl_errno($ch)) { echo curl_error($ch); }
 
// (B2) JSON DECODE
else {
  echo $result; // string
  $decoded = json_decode($result);
  print_r($decoded); // standard object
  $decoded = json_decode($result, true);
  print_r($decoded); // array
}
 
// (B3) CURL CLOSE
curl_close($ch);

This is pretty much the same as the snippet in the introduction, but take extra note of $result:

  • In the “raw” form, direct from the server – It is a JSON-encoded string.
  • After we do a json_decode($result), it will be parsed into an object. Yes, this is a common pitfall among beginners – Not an array, but an object.
  • If you want to parse the results into an array, do json_decode($result, true) instead.

 

 

EXTRAS

That’s all for the tutorial, and here is a small section on some extras and links that may be useful to you.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

 

THE END

Thank you for reading, and we have come to the end. I hope that it has helped you to better understand, and if you want to share anything with this guide, please feel free to comment below. Good luck and happy coding!

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