PHP get cURL response value as variable

[jarvis]

Hi All,

 

I'm hoping some kind soul can assist.

 

I have the following php script:

#initialize cURL
$ch = curl_init();

#connect to the remote URL 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	
#tell curl_exec to return the response output as a string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: text/xml')); 
	
#instruct cURL to do a regular HTTP POST
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
	
#specify the data which is to be posted
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml);
	

#execute the cURL session
if($result = curl_exec($ch) === false) {
	die('Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch));
}
	
$ch_result = curl_exec($ch);

The result returned is as follows:

 

{

"message":"lorem ipsum dolor",

"success":false,

"errors":

}

 

What I'm trying to do (with no luck) is to get the value of success.

 

I thought I could do something like:

$json = json_decode($ch);
echo $json->status;

But that doesn't work

 

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[requinix]

Actually it does work. false as a string is empty so you don't see anything.

 

Try using print_r or var_dump instead.

[jarvis]

Hi Requinix

 

Many thanks for the reply.

 

I've tried:

$json = json_decode($ch);
echo '<hr>'.$json->success;
print_r($json);

However, that returns nothing

[requinix]

It won't "return" anything. What is the output you see?

[jarvis]

Thanks

 

I guess what I'm trying to do is get the value (true/false) so I can action something depending on the result.

 

Perhaps that helps shed light on what I'm trying to do?

[requinix]

You can get the value. You're already doing it.

$json->success

The problem is that your attempts to view that value are not working: you cannot simply echo it because the value is false and, like I said, false->string (which happens for everything being echo-ed) is an invisible empty string; if it were true you would have seen a 1.

Meanwhile print_r... oh dammit, I forgot.

 

You can't use print_r() either. It doesn't do the same false->empty string that echo does, but it does happen to also print out nothing for a false value. For ~reasons~.

 

Try var_dump() instead. That always prints out something.

[jarvis]

Oh I see - my apologies.

 

Ok, I now see NULL, so guess I can test either NULL or 1

 

Thanks

[requinix]

No, that's not the problem.

 

I skipped the first half of your post and went straight to the second part, where you said you had some JSON and couldn't get the success value. I didn't notice that you don't actually have the JSON.

 

cURL will output stuff by default. That is what your code is doing now: outputting the JSON to the browser. That's how you're able to see what it is. Instead, you need to get that output into a variable. You do it with the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

When that is set, the return value from curl_exec (which you have as $ch_result) will be the response as a string. The JSON.

 

You then need to decode that variable. Not $ch, which is just a cURL identifier for doing cURL operations, and useless once you've curl_close()d it. Which, by the way, you need to do if you aren't doing it already.

$json = json_decode($ch_result);

And now you can properly use var_dump to see the value you want:

var_dump($json->success);

It will say either bool(true) or bool(false) - anything else probably means there's still an error in your code.

 

 

If you think something should be true/false and you get null then don't just roll with it. Find out why it's doing that and not doing what you expect.

[jarvis]

Hi,

 

Perhaps I wasn't clear - so I do apologies!

 

I have one final question though.

 

If the output is:

{
	"message":"Lorem ipsum.",
	"success":false,
	"errors":[{
		"error_code":"VAL_00149",
		"error_value":"lorem",
		"error_description":"lorem"

I now know I can use:

$status = $json->success;

This returns 1 or NULL (great - thank you!)

 

If I want to get the error description, is that possible? I assume something like:

$errors = $json->errors;
echo 'Errors: ' . $errors[0]['errors'] . '<br />';

[jarvis]

Apologies, I realised I needed:

echo $json->errors['errors']['error_description'];

Many thanks for all your help!

[requinix]

[jarvis]

Hi 

 

Just following up on this as I've had to amend the code, to:

$json = json_decode($ch_result, true);

As such, if I now dump out the info I get something like:

Array
{
  [warnings] => 	
  [time] => 
  [errors] => Array
    {
      [message] => Lorem ipsum
    }
}

How can I access the message?

 

Thanks

[jarvis]

Please ignore, I sorted it

$message = $json['errors']['message'];