Sending POST Data to a URL in PHP

When you need to send POST data to a URL without relying on an HTML form, PHP's cURL extension provides a powerful solution. Here's how to accomplish it:

Using cURL:

1. Initialize a cURL session with curl_init( $url ). Replace $url with the target URL.
2. Set CURLOPT_POST to 1 to enable POST data sending.
3. Prepare your POST data in a string, using & to separate key-value pairs. For example: $myvars = 'myvar1=' . $myvar1 . '&myvar2=' . $myvar2.
4. Assign the POST data to CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS using curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $myvars ).
5. Enable following redirects with curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1 ).
6. Disable header output with curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0 ).
7. Set CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER to 1 to retrieve the response as a string.
8. Execute the cURL session with curl_exec( $ch ).
9. Store the response in a variable, such as $response.

This approach allows you to send POST data directly from PHP code, enabling you to automate form submissions or transfer data without using an HTML form.