Download file attached to header with Curl and Php

Question

Hi

I'm connecting to a website daily to collect some statistics, the website runs .net to make things extra difficult. What i would like to do is to mechanize this process.

I go to http://www.thesite.com:8080/statistics/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2Fstatistics%2Fdataexport.ashx%3FReport%3D99, (the return url is /statistics/dataexport.ashx?Report=99 decoded). The Login.aspx displays a form, in which I enter my user/pass and when the form is submitted the dataexport.ashx starts to download the file directly. The filename delivered is always statistics.csv.

I have experimented with this a few days now. Are there any resources or does anyone have some kind of hint of what I should try next?

Here is some of my code.

<?php 
// INIT CURL
$ch = curl_init();

// SET URL FOR THE POST FORM LOGIN
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

// ENABLE HTTP POST
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

// SET POST PARAMETERS : FORM VALUES FOR EACH FIELD
$viewstate = urlencode('/wEPDwUKM123123daE2MGQYAQUeX19Db250cm9sc1JlcXVpcmVQb3N0QmFja0tleV9fFgEFGG1fTG9naW4kTG9naW5JbWFnZUJ1dHASdasdRvbij2MVoasdasdYibEXm/eSdad4hS');
$eventval = urlencode('/wEWBAKMasd123LKJJKfdAvD8gd8KAoCt878OED00uk0pShTQHkXmZszVXtBJtVc=');
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "__VIEWSTATE=$viewstate"."__EVENTVALIDATION=$eventval&UserName=myuser&Password=mypassword");

// IMITATE CLASSIC BROWSER'S BEHAVIOUR : HANDLE COOKIES
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt');

# Setting CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER variable to 1 will force cURL
# not to print out the results of its query.
# Instead, it will return the results as a string return value
# from curl_exec() instead of the usual true/false.
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

// FOLLOW REDIRECTS AND READ THE HEADER
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);

// EXECUTE REQUEST (FORM LOGIN)
$store = curl_exec ($ch);

// print the result
print_r($store);

// CLOSE CURL
curl_close ($ch);
?>

Thanks Trikks

Answer 1

You also need to use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE to send the cookies along with the next request. Another thing if i remember correctly is that ASPX would set unique value each time for variables like __VIEWSTATE. See if these 2 pointers help.