Why using one item array with CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS not working?

Question

Is there an explanation why using array gave me 500 internal server error and using string just works fine with same input ?

    $header_array[] = 'Host: example.com';
    $header_array[] = 'Accept-Language: tr-TR,tr;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.5,en;q=0.3';
 //   $header_array[] = 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate';
    $header_array[] = 'Connection: keep-alive';
    $header_array[] = 'Cache-Control: no-cache';
    $header_array[] = 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8';
    $header_array[] = 'Pragma: no-cache';
    $header_array[] = 'Referer: https://example.com/post/'.$post_id;
    $header_array[] = 'X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest';
    $header_array[] = 'Content-Length: '.strlen("id=".$post_id);
    /* curl */
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header_array);
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);

not working (internal server error):

    $post_array['id'] = "1";
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_array);

working:

    $post_string = "id=1";
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_string);

this is also working on another url:

    $post_array['__Token'] = $token;
    $post_array['UserName'] = $this->username;
    $post_array['Password'] = $this->password;
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_array);

curl verbose output of error:

Array
(
    [url] => https://example.com/post/delete
    [content_type] => 
    [http_code] => 500
    [header_size] => 257
    [request_size] => 879
    [filetime] => -1
    [ssl_verify_result] => 0
    [redirect_count] => 0
    [total_time] => 0.370037
    [namelookup_time] => 2.7E-5
    [connect_time] => 0.109487
    [pretransfer_time] => 0.187462
    [size_upload] => 145
    [size_download] => 0
    [speed_download] => 0
    [speed_upload] => 391
    [download_content_length] => 0
    [upload_content_length] => 145
    [starttransfer_time] => 0.335593
    [redirect_time] => 0
    [redirect_url] => 
    [primary_ip] => 188.132.xx.xxx
    [certinfo] => Array
        (
        )

    [primary_port] => 443
    [local_ip] => 172.20.xx.xxx
    [local_port] => 63696
)

my phpinfo states:

Core

PHP Version => 5.5.14
curl

cURL support => enabled
cURL Information => 7.37.1

@Dagon i've added not working description on my question as 500 internal server error. I hope this is useful for you ? — mirza
– mirza, Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 23:48
I think you're supposed to use http_build_query() on the array you want to send with CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, e.g. curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post_array)); — scrowler
– scrowler, Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 0:02
@scrowler and why it does work without using it on last example ? — mirza
– mirza, Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 0:06
Well in your last example the $post_string doesn't represent the $post_array values above it so most of that example is irrelevant — scrowler
– scrowler, Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 0:31

Hassan Khodadadeh · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-14 02:03:39Z

1

If you take a look at PHP manual, it says:

Passing an array to CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS will encode the data as multipart/form-data, while passing a URL-encoded string will encode the data as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

And you have these lines in your code:

$header_array[] = 'Content-Length: '.strlen("id=".$post_id);
$header_array[] = 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8';

if you remove those lines, it will be ok!

My code currently looks like this:

<?php 
    //$header_array[] = 'Host: example.com';

    //$header_array[] = 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate';
    $header_array[] = 'Accept-Language: tr-TR,tr;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.5,en;q=0.3';
    $header_array[] = 'Connection: keep-alive';
    $header_array[] = 'Cache-Control: no-cache';

    $header_array[] = 'Pragma: no-cache';
    $header_array[] = 'Referer: https://example.com/post/'.$post_id;
    $header_array[] = 'X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest';
    //$header_array[] = 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8';
    //$header_array[] = 'Content-Length: '.strlen("id=".$post_id);
    /* curl */

    $ch = curl_init('http://example.com/your/file.php');

    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header_array);
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
    $post_array['id'] = "1";
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_array);


    $data = curl_exec($ch);
?>

If it shows the same error, try adding :

$header_array[] = 'Transfer-Encoding: chunked';

edited Apr 14, 2015 at 2:03

answered Apr 14, 2015 at 1:24

Hassan Khodadadeh

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4 Comments

mirza Over a year ago

actually i get this error: "HTTP Error 411. The request must be chunked or have a content length." and after adding content-length again it doesn't worked either. Seems like there is no way to use array when it's not "multipart/form-data"

mirza Over a year ago

sorry, still same error "HTTP Error 411. The request must be chunked or have a content length."

Hassan Khodadadeh Over a year ago

@motto did you try the last line ?

mirza Over a year ago

still no luck. same 500 internal error on this time. i decided to use "http_build_query($post_array)"

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