Zend\Http\Client provides an easy interface for performing Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests. Zend\Http\Client supports 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).
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. Both can be left out, and set later using the setUri() and setConfig() methods.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | use Zend\Http\Client;
$client = new Client('http://example.org', array(
'maxredirects' => 0,
'timeout' => 30
));
// This is actually exactly the same:
$client = new Client();
$client->setUri('http://example.org');
$client->setConfig(array(
'maxredirects' => 0,
'timeout' => 30
));
// You can also use a Zend\Config\Ini object to set the client's configuration
$config = new Zend\Config\Ini('httpclient.ini', 'secure');
$client->setConfig($config);
|
Note
Zend\Http\Client uses Zend\Uri\Http to validate URLs. This means that some special characters like the pipe symbol (‘|’) or the caret symbol (‘^’) will not be accepted in the URL by default. This can be modified by setting the ‘allowunwise’ option of Zend\Uri to ‘TRUE‘. See this section for more information.
The constructor and setConfig() method accept 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 strict Whether perform validation on header names. When set to FALSE, validation functions will be skipped. Usually this should not be changed boolean TRUE 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 FALSEgetLastResponse() 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
__construct(string $uri, array $config)
Constructor
Returns void
setConfig(Config|array $config = array ( ))
Set configuration parameters for this HTTP client
Returns Zend\Http\Client
setAdapter(Zend\Http\Client\Adapter|string $adapter)
Load the connection adapter
While this method is not called more than one for a client, it is seperated from ->send() to preserve logic and readability
Returns null
getAdapter()
Load the connection adapter
Returns Zend\Http\Client\Adapter
getRequest()
Get Request
Returns Request
getResponse()
Get Response
Returns Response
setRequest(Zend\Http\Zend\Http\Request $request)
Set request
Returns void
setResponse(Zend\Http\Zend\Http\Response $response)
Set response
Returns void
getLastRequest()
Get the last request (as a string)
Returns string
getLastResponse()
Get the last response (as a string)
Returns string
getRedirectionsCount()
Get the redirections count
Returns integer
setUri(string|Zend\Http\Zend\Uri\Http $uri)
Set Uri (to the request)
Returns void
getUri()
Get uri (from the request)
Returns Zend\Http\Zend\Uri\Http
setMethod(string $method)
Set the HTTP method (to the request)
Returns Zend\Http\Client
getMethod()
Get the HTTP method
Returns string
setEncType(string $encType, string $boundary)
Set the encoding type and the boundary (if any)
Returns void
getEncType()
Get the encoding type
Returns type
setRawBody(string $body)
Set raw body (for advanced use cases)
Returns Zend\Http\Client
setParameterPost(array $post)
Set the POST parameters
Returns Zend\Http\Client
setParameterGet(array $query)
Set the GET parameters
Returns Zend\Http\Client
getCookies()
Return the current cookies
Returns array
addCookie(ArrayIterator|SetCookie|string $cookie, string $value, string $domain, string $expire, string $path, boolean $secure = false, boolean $httponly = true)
Add a cookie
Returns Zend\Http\Client
setCookies(array $cookies)
Set an array of cookies
Returns Zend\Http\Client
clearCookies()
Clear all the cookies
Returns void
setHeaders(Headers|array $headers)
Set the headers (for the request)
Returns Zend\Http\Client
hasHeader(string $name)
Check if exists the header type specified
Returns boolean
getHeader(string $name)
Get the header value of the request
Returns string|boolean
setStream(string|boolean $streamfile = true)
Set streaming for received data
Returns Zend\Http\Client
getStream()
Get status of streaming for received data
Returns boolean|string
setAuth(string $user, string $password, string $type = 'basic')
Create a HTTP authentication “Authorization:” header according to the specified user, password and authentication method.
Returns Zend\Http\Client
resetParameters()
Reset all the HTTP parameters (auth,cookies,request, response, etc)
Returns void
send(Request $request)
Send HTTP request
Returns Response
setFileUpload(string $filename, string $formname, string $data, string $ctype)
Set a file to upload (using a POST request)
Can be used in two ways: 1. $data is null (default): $filename is treated as the name if a local file which will be read and sent. Will try to guess the content type using mime_content_type(). 2. $data is set - $filename is sent as the file name, but $data is sent as the file contents and no file is read from the file system. In this case, you need to manually set the Content-Type ($ctype) or it will default to application/octet-stream.
Returns Zend\Http\Client
removeFileUpload(string $filename)
Remove a file to upload
Returns boolean
encodeFormData(string $boundary, string $name, mixed $value, string $filename, array $headers = array ( ))
Encode data to a multipart/form-data part suitable for a POST request.
Returns string
Performing a Simple GET Request
Performing simple HTTP requests is very easily done using the request() method, and rarely needs more than three lines of code:
1 2 3 | use Zend\Config\Client;
$client = new Client('http://example.org');
$response = $client->send();
|
The request() method takes one optional parameter - the request method. This can be either GET, POST, PUT, HEAD, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS or CONNECT as defined by the HTTP protocol [1].
Using Request Methods Other Than GET
For convenience, these are all defined as class constants: Zend\Http\Client::GET, Zend\Http\Client::POST and so on.
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 (see the above example).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | use Zend\Http\Client;
$client = new Client();
// Performing a POST request
$response = $client->send('POST');
// Yet another way of performing a POST request
$client->setMethod(Client::POST);
$response = $client->send();
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Adding GET and POST 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 parameter’s name as its first parameter, and the GET parameter’s value as its second parameter. For convenience, the setParameterGet() method can also accept a single associative array of name => value GET variables - which may be more comfortable when several GET parameters need to be set.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | use Zend\Http\Client;
$client = new Client();
// Setting a get parameter using the setParameterGet method
$client->setParameterGet('knight', 'lancelot');
// This is equivalent to setting such URL:
$client->setUri('http://example.com/index.php?knight=lancelot');
// Adding several parameters with one call
$client->setParameterGet(array(
'first_name' => 'Bender',
'middle_name' => 'Bending',
'made_in' => 'Mexico',
));
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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 similar to the setParameterGet() method in structure.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | use Zend\Http\Client;
$client = new Client();
// Setting a POST parameter
$client->setParameterPost('language', 'fr');
// Setting several POST parameters, one of them with several values
$client->setParameterPost(array(
'language' => 'es',
'country' => 'ar',
'selection' => array(45, 32, 80)
));
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Note that when sending POST requests, you can set both GET and POST parameters. On the other hand, while setting POST parameters for a non-POST request will not trigger and error, it is useless. Unless the request is a POST request, POST parameters are simply ignored.
Using A Request Object With The Client
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | use Zend\Http\Request;
use Zend\Http\Client;
$request = new Request();
$request->setUri('http://www.test.com');
$request->setMethod('POST');
$request->setParameterPost(array('foo' => 'bar'));
$client = new Client();
$response = $client->dispatch($request);
if ($response->isSuccess()) {
// the POST was successful
}
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[1] | See RFC 2616 -http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html. |
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