gaver at telenet dot be (2012-06-02 11:38:33)

If you want to communicate between your server and a https server

<?php
$variable =$_GET['variable'];
$host = "https://user:password@secure site"; 
$path = "securescript.php"; 
$url=$host.$path;

$formdata = array ( "variable1" => "10000","variable2" => "02" , "variable3" => "03" ); 

// get form data in a string
  foreach($formdata AS $key => $val){ 
    $poststring .= urlencode($key) . "=" . urlencode($val) . "&"; 
  } 
// strip off trailing ampersand 
$poststring = substr($poststring, 0, -1); 
// create a complete nice string
$urlcom= $host.$path."?".$poststring;

// echo $urlcom; // if you want to debug your string

//and you can read out the data in one command... from a secure https server handling login and everything you need
 $postdataget=file_get_contents($urlcom);
// and yes you can debug the responseheader to view if you have authorization
//  var_dump($http_response_header);

//and if you want to read the data, this is the response from the server
//  var_dump($postdataget);

?>

Nick Lewis (2008-06-26 04:17:14)

A note on how to deal with Cookies
To receive a cookie:
$httphandle = fopen($url,"r");
$meta = stream_get_meta_data($httphandle);
for ($j = 0; isset($meta['wrapper_data'][$j]); $j++) {
$httpline = $meta['wrapper_data'][$j];
@list($header,$parameters) = explode(";",$httpline,2);
@list($attr,$value) = explode(":",$header,2);
if (strtolower(trim($attr)) == "set-cookie") {
$cookie = trim($value);
break;
}
}
fclose($httphandle);
echo $cookie;
To send a cookie:
$user_agent = ini_get("user_agent");
ini_set("user_agent",$user_agent . "\r\nCookie: " . $cookie);
$httphandle = fopen($url,"r");
fclose($httphandle);
ini_set("user_agent",$user_agent);

spazdaq (2007-10-24 03:27:46)

just an FYI about digest authentication.
While one of the above http examples has the username and password info supplied with the url, this must only be for basic authentication. it does not appear to work for digest authentication. you have to handle the digest followup request on your own.

NEA at AraTaraBul dot com (2007-07-29 16:06:50)

HTTP post function;

<?php
function post_it($datastream, $url) { 

$url = preg_replace("@^http://@i", "", $url);
$host = substr($url, 0, strpos($url, "/"));
$uri = strstr($url, "/"); 

      $reqbody = "";
      foreach($datastream as $key=>$val) {
          if (!empty($reqbody)) $reqbody.= "&";
      $reqbody.= $key."=".urlencode($val);
      } 

$contentlength = strlen($reqbody);
     $reqheader =  "POST $uri HTTP/1.1\r\n".
                   "Host: $host\n". "User-Agent: PostIt\r\n".
     "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n".
     "Content-Length: $contentlength\r\n\r\n".
     "$reqbody\r\n"; 

$socket = fsockopen($host, 80, $errno, $errstr);

if (!$socket) {
   $result["errno"] = $errno;
   $result["errstr"] = $errstr;
   return $result;
}

fputs($socket, $reqheader);

while (!feof($socket)) {
   $result[] = fgets($socket, 4096);
}

fclose($socket);

return $result;
}
?>

Sinured (2007-06-28 03:24:29)

If you want to send more than one custom header, just make header an array:

<?php
$default_opts = array(
    'http' => array(
        'user_agent' => 'Foobar',
        'header' => array(
            'X-Foo: Bar',
            'X-Bar: Baz'
        )
    )
);
stream_context_get_default($default_opts);
readfile('http://www.xhaus.com/headers');
?>

dwalton at acm dot org (2006-11-17 00:18:39)

As it says on this page:
"The stream allows access to the body of the resource; the headers are stored in the $http_response_header variable. Since PHP 4.3.0, the headers are available using stream_get_meta_data()."
This one sentence is the only documentation I have found on the mysterious $http_response_header variable, and I'm afraid it's misleading. It implies that from 4.3.0 onward, stream_get_meta_data() ought to be used in favor of $http_response_header.
Don't be fooled! stream_get_meta_data() requires a stream reference, which makes it ONLY useful with fopen() and related functions. However, $http_response_header can be used to get the headers from the much simpler file_get_contents() and related functions, which makes it still very useful in 5.x.
Also note that even when file_get_contents() and friends fail due to a 4xx or 5xx error and return false, the headers are still available in $http_response_header.