Trouble passing certain data via php file_get_contents

Question

This is a piggy back off this question -- I've discovered some more information such that the question, itself, needed to change.

I'm attempting to pass data from javascript SPA to a php file (dbPatch.php) to another php file (mongoPatch_backend.php). dbPatch.php is effectively acting as a middle-man to get data to appropriate servers.

My javascript fetch looks like this:

const API = PHP_FILE_LOCATION + 'dbPatch.php/';
const query = 
    "needleKey=" + encodeURIComponent(needleKey) + "&" +
    "needle=" + encodeURIComponent(needle) + "&" +
    "newData=" + encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(newData));

let URI = API;

fetch(URI, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
    },
    body: query
    }).then.... blah...blah....

This calls my php file, dbPatch...

<?php
$API = "https://SERVER/php/mongoPatch_backend.php?";

$needleKey = $_REQUEST['needleKey'];
$needle = $_REQUEST['needle'];
$newData = $_REQUEST['newData'];

$postData = "needleKey=".urlencode($needleKey);
$postData .= "&needle=".urlencode($needle);
$postData .= "&newData=".urlencode($newData); //THIS IS THE LINE I TALK ABOUT BELOW

$data = file_get_contents($API.$postData);

echo $data;
?>

which in turn calls my mongoPatch_backend.php file...

<?php

$user = "xxx";
$pwd = 'xxx';

$needleKey = $_REQUEST['needleKey'];
$needle = $_REQUEST['needle'];
$filter = [$needleKey => $needle];
$newData = $_REQUEST['newData'];

$filter = ['x' => ['$gt' => 1]];
$options = [
    'projection' => ['_id' => 0],
    'sort' => ['x' => -1],
];

$bson = MongoDB\BSON\fromJSON($newData);
$value = MongoDB\BSON\toPHP($bson);

$manager = new MongoDB\Driver\Manager("mongodb://${user}:${pwd}@DBSERVER:27017");

$bulk = new MongoDB\Driver\BulkWrite;
$bulk->update(
    [$needleKey => $needle],
    ['$set' => $value],
    ['multi' => false, 'upsert' => true]
);

$results = $manager->executeBulkWrite('dbname.users', $bulk);

var_dump($results);
?>

This does not work.

If I call mongoPatch_backend.php directly from the javascript, it DOES work. This leads me to believe the problem is in the passing of the data located in the dbPatch.php file.

Further, if I call dbPatch with different 'newData' (shorter) it DOES work. This leads me to believe it's something with the data being passed in (but remember, it works if I call directly... so it's right coming out of the javascript).

Spitting out $newData from dbPatch.php via var_dump($_REQUEST['newData']); gives me JSON data which has been stringified but it is not character-escaped. It's about 5,000 characters.

Here is the interesting part.

If I change mongoPatch_backend.php to JUST <?php echo "Hello World"; ?> I STILL do not get anything passed back through dbPatch.php to my SPA. This REALLY makes me think something is wrong in the dbPatch.php file.

So... I comment out the $postData .= "&newData=".urlencode($newData); line from the dbPatch.php ... I DO get the "Hello World" back.

if I just remove .urlencode and instead just have $postData .= "&newData=".$newData; I still get nothing back.

So the problem seems to be with putting $newData in my post. The mongoPatch_backend.php is not even doing anything with the $newData... dbPatch.php (it appears) is simply having trouble sending that data.

Unfortunately... I"m not sure where to go from here... given, I do, indeed, need to send the $newData to the backend.

EDIT: In reponse to suggestions that I use "POST" instead of "GET" I did a search and found this Stack question: POST data to a URL in PHP

From that, I now have this:

dbPatch.php:

$url = 'https://SERVERNAME/php/mongoPatch_backend.php';

$myvars = 'myvar1=' . "TEST" . '&myvar2=' . "ALSOTEST";

$ch = curl_init( $url );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $myvars);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

$response = curl_exec( $ch );

echo $response;

and I changed my mongoPatch_backend.php to:

<?php
echo "HELLO WORLD";
?>

... and I get nothing as the response. (that is, I do not get "HELLO WORLD" form the backend).

My PHP log shows no errors.

My curl config from phpinfo() is:

cURL support    enabled
cURL Information    7.59.0
Age 4
Features
AsynchDNS   Yes
CharConv    No
Debug   No
GSS-Negotiate   No
IDN Yes
IPv6    Yes
krb4    No
Largefile   Yes
libz    Yes
NTLM    Yes
NTLMWB  No
SPNEGO  Yes
SSL Yes
SSPI    Yes
TLS-SRP No
HTTP2   Yes
GSSAPI  No
KERBEROS5   Yes
UNIX_SOCKETS    No
PSL No
Protocols   dict, file, ftp, ftps, gopher, http, https, imap, imaps, ldap, pop3, pop3s, rtsp, scp, sftp, smb, smbs, smtp, smtps, telnet, tftp
Host    x86_64-pc-win32
SSL Version OpenSSL/1.1.0h
ZLib Version    1.2.11
libSSH Version  libssh2/1.8.0

Try using POST instead of GET. Most web servers limit the number of characters allowed in a URL. — miken32
– miken32, Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 15:55

lowcrawler · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-25 17:26:39Z

I'm not entirely sure why, but this question:PHP - CURL is enabled but not working led me to an example of using cURL that worked.

My dbPatch.php now looks like this and appears to work...

<?php
$url = 'https://SERVERNAME/php/mongoPatch_backend.php';

$params = 'needleKey=' . $_REQUEST['needleKey'] . '&needle=' . $_REQUEST['needle'] . '&newData='. $_REQUEST['newData'];

if (! function_exists ( 'curl_version' )) {
    exit ( "Enable cURL in PHP" );
}

$ch = curl_init ();
$timeout = 0; // 100; // set to zero for no timeout
$myHITurl = "http://152.61.248.218/php/mongoPatch_backend.php";
curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, $myHITurl );
curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0 );
curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $params);
curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout );
$file_contents = curl_exec ( $ch );
if (curl_errno ( $ch )) {
    echo curl_error ( $ch );
    curl_close ( $ch );
    exit ();
}
curl_close ( $ch );

echo "$file_contents";
?>

Tom Douglas · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-25 15:55:03Z

0

file_get_contents is only to be used to read a file into a string. Think of it like opening a text document in Notepad or Textedit.

For API requests to dynamically rendered PHP files, you'll want to use the PHP library "curl"

http://php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php

http://codular.com/curl-with-php

answered Sep 25, 2018 at 15:55

Tom Douglas

274 bronze badges

2 Comments

miken32 Over a year ago

You can use file_get_contents to fetch remote resources.

lowcrawler Over a year ago

I added my attempts to use curl to the OP. For what it's worth, I also did it with the example from your second link and didn't have any luck.

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