How to Send a Raw POST Request Using cURL in PHP

In PHP, cURL is a popular library for sending HTTP requests. This article will demonstrate how to use cURL to perform a RAW POST request, where the data is sent in unencoded form.

Creating the Request

To send a RAW POST request, start by initializing a cURL session using curl_init(). Then, configure the following options:

• CURLOPT_URL: The URL of the request
• CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER: Set to 1 to return the response as a string
• CURLOPT_POST: Set to 1 to indicate a POST request
• CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS: Set to the raw data to be sent

Specifying the Content Type

For a RAW POST request, it's important to specify the content type of the body. In this case, it's text/plain. To do this, use the CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER option with an array containing the following header:

'Content-Type: text/plain'

Sending the Request

Once the request is configured, use curl_exec($ch) to send it. The response will be stored in the variable $result.

Example Code

The following code snippet provides an example of a RAW POST request using cURL in PHP:

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://url/url/url");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "body goes here");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: text/plain'));

$result = curl_exec($ch);