I’m implementing a PHP script which receives an HTTP POST message with in the body a json string, tied to a ‘report’ parameter. So HTTP POST report=.
I’m testing this out with SimpleTest (PHP Unit Testing).
I build the json:
$array = array("type" => "start"); // DEBUG
$report = json_encode($array);
I send the POST:
$this->post(LOCAL_URL, array("report"=>$json));
(calls a method in the WebTestCase class from SimpleTest).
SimpleTest says it sends this:
POST /Receiver/web/report.php HTTP/1.0
Host: localhost:8888
Connection: close
Content-Length: 37
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
report=%7B%22type%22%3A%22start%22%7D
I receive as such:
$report = $_POST['report'];
$logger->debug("Content of the report parameter: $report");
$json = json_decode($report);
The debug statement above gives me:
Content of the report parameter: {\"type\":\"start\"}
And when I decode, it gives the error
Syntax error, malformed JSON
The ‘application/x-www-form-urlencoded’ content-type is automatically selected by SimpleTest. When I set it to ‘application/json’, my PHP script doesn’t see any parameters and as such, can’t find the ‘report’ variable.
I suppose something is going wrong with the url encoding, but I’m lost here as to how I should get the json accross.
Also, what is the usual practice here? Does one use the key/value approach even if you just send an entire json body? Or can I just dump the json string in the body of the HTTP POST and read it out somehow? (I had no success in actually reading it out without a variable to point to).
Anyway, I hope the problem is somewhat clearly stated.
Thanks a bunch in advance.
Dieter
It sounds like you have magic quotes enabled (which is a big no-no). I would suggest you disable this, otherwise, run all your input through stripslashes().
However, it is better practice to reference the POST data as a key/value pair, otherwise you will have to read the php://input stream.