HTTP Client

Overview

Zend\Http\Client provides an easy interface for performing Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests. Zend\Http\Client supports the most simple features expected from an HTTP client, as well as some more complex features such as HTTP authentication and file uploads. Successful requests (and most unsuccessful ones too) return a Zend\Http\Response object, which provides access to the response’s headers and body (see this section).

Quick Start

The class constructor optionally accepts a URL as its first parameter (can be either a string or a Zend\Uri\Http object), and an array or Zend\Config\Config object containing configuration options. The send() method is used to submit the request to the remote server, and a Zend\Http\Response object is returned:

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client('http://example.org', array(
    'maxredirects' => 0,
    'timeout'      => 30
));
$response = $client->send();

Both constructor parameters can be left out, and set later using the setUri() and setConfig() methods:

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client();
$client->setUri('http://example.org');
$client->setOptions(array(
    'maxredirects' => 0,
    'timeout'      => 30
));
$response = $client->send();

Zend\Http\Client can also dispatch requests using a separately configured request object (see the Zend\Http\Request manual page for full details of the methods available):

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use Zend\Http\Client;
use Zend\Http\Request;

$request = new Request();
$request->setUri('http://example.org');

$client = new Client();

$response = $client->send($request);

Note

Zend\Http\Client uses Zend\Uri\Http to validate URLs. See the Zend\Uri manual page for more information on the validation process.

Configuration

The constructor and setOptions() method accepts an associative array of configuration parameters, or a Zend\Config\Config object. Setting these parameters is optional, as they all have default values.

Zend\Http\Client configuration parameters
Parameter Description Expected Values Default Value
maxredirects Maximum number of redirections to follow (0 = none) integer 5
strictredirects Whether to strictly follow the RFC when redirecting (see this section) boolean FALSE
useragent User agent identifier string (sent in request headers) string ‘Zend\Http\Client’
timeout Connection timeout (seconds) integer 10
httpversion HTTP protocol version (usually ‘1.1’ or ‘1.0’) string ‘1.1’
adapter Connection adapter class to use (see this section) mixed ‘Zend\Http\Client\Adapter\Socket’
keepalive Whether to enable keep-alive connections with the server. Useful and might improve performance if several consecutive requests to the same server are performed. boolean FALSE
storeresponse Whether to store last response for later retrieval with getLastResponse(). If set to FALSE, getLastResponse() will return NULL. boolean TRUE
encodecookies Whether to pass the cookie value through urlencode/urldecode. Enabling this breaks support with some web servers. Disabling this limits the range of values the cookies can contain. boolean TRUE
outputstream Destination for streaming of received data (options: string (filename), true for temp file, false/null to disable streaming) boolean FALSE
rfc3986strict Whether to strictly adhere to RFC 3986 (in practice, this means replacing ‘+’ with ‘%20’) boolean FALSE

The options are also passed to the adapter class upon instantiation, so the same array or Zend\Config\Config object) can be used for adapter configuration. See the Zend Http Client adapter section for more information on the adapter-specific options available.

Examples

Performing a Simple GET Request

Performing simple HTTP requests is very easily done:

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client('http://example.org');
$response = $client->send();

Using Request Methods Other Than GET

The request method can be set using setMethod(). If no method is specified, the method set by the last setMethod() call is used. If setMethod() was never called, the default request method is GET.

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client('http://example.org');

// Performing a POST request
$client->setMethod('POST');
$response = $client->send();

For convenience, Zend\Http\Request defines all the request methods as class constants, Zend\Http\Request::METHOD_GET, Zend\Http\Request::METHOD_POST and so on:

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use Zend\Http\Client;
use Zend\Http\Request;

$client = new Client('http://example.org');

// Performing a POST request
$client->setMethod(Request::METHOD_POST);
$response = $client->send();

Setting GET parameters

Adding GET parameters to an HTTP request is quite simple, and can be done either by specifying them as part of the URL, or by using the setParameterGet() method. This method takes the GET parameters as an associative array of name => value GET variables.

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use Zend\Http\Client;
$client = new Client();

// This is equivalent to setting a URL in the Client's constructor:
$client->setUri('http://example.com/index.php?knight=lancelot');

// Adding several parameters with one call
$client->setParameterGet(array(
   'first_name'  => 'Bender',
   'middle_name' => 'Bending',
   'last_name'   => 'Rodríguez',
   'made_in'     => 'Mexico',
));

Setting POST Parameters

While GET parameters can be sent with every request method, POST parameters are only sent in the body of POST requests. Adding POST parameters to a request is very similar to adding GET parameters, and can be done with the setParameterPost() method, which is identical to the setParameterGet() method in structure.

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client();

// Setting several POST parameters, one of them with several values
$client->setParameterPost(array(
    'language'  => 'es',
    'country'   => 'ar',
    'selection' => array(45, 32, 80)
));

Note that when sending POST requests, you can set both GET and POST parameters. On the other hand, setting POST parameters on a non-POST request will not trigger an error, rendering it useless. Unless the request is a POST request, POST parameters are simply ignored.

Connecting to SSL URLs

If you are trying to connect to an SSL (https) URL and are using the default (Zend\Http\Client\Adapter\Socket) adapter, you may need to set the sslcapath configuration option in order to allow PHP to validate the SSL certificate:

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client('https://example.org', array(
   'sslcapath' => '/etc/ssl/certs'
));
$response = $client->send();

The exact path to use will vary depending on your Operating System. Without this you’ll get the exception “Unable to enable crypto on TCP connection” when trying to connect.

Alternatively, you could switch to the curl adapter, which negotiates SSL connections more transparently:

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client('https://example.org', array(
   'adapter' => 'Zend\Http\Client\Adapter\Curl'
));
$response = $client->send();

A Complete Example

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use Zend\Http\Client;

$client = new Client();
$client->setUri('http://www.example.com');
$client->setMethod('POST');
$client->setParameterPost(array(
   'foo' => 'bar'
));

$response = $client->send();

if ($response->isSuccess()) {
    // the POST was successful
}

or the same thing, using a request object:

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use Zend\Http\Client;
use Zend\Http\Request;

$request = new Request();
$request->setUri('http://www.example.com');
$request->setMethod('POST');
$request->getPost()->set('foo', 'bar');

$client = new Client();
$response = $client->send($request);

if ($response->isSuccess()) {
    // the POST was successful
}
[1]See RFC 2616 -http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html.