PHP cURL code fails online but not on localhost. Please help!

Question

Hello Everyone!

I cannot figure out why this code works locally on my PC (localhost) but not online on a public server? Can it be a PHP version issue? Thankful for all help!

$post_data = array('item_type_id' => '8', 'string_key' => 'Test Nyckel2', 'string_value' => 'Test Varde2', 'string_extra' => 'Test Extra', 'numeric_extra' => 'Test Numeric Extra', 'is_public' => true, 'is_public_for_contacts' => true);

    $post_data = json_encode(array('item' => $post_data), JSON_FORCE_OBJECT);

    $c = curl_init('http://example.com/items.json'); 

    curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
    curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_COOKIE, 'fb_cookie='.$fb_code);
    curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_data);

    curl_exec($c);

    curl_close($c);

Answer 1

Is the cURL Library installed on the server that isn't working?

If you can't tell, use the phpinfo(); function.

Answer 2

I see you are using the options parameter in your json_encode() call.

However here is what PHP doc says (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-encode.php):

5.3.0 The options parameter was added.

So you PHP code is using an undefined constant, JSON_FORCE_OBJECT?

Answer 3

curl_exec returns FALSE if the request fails for any reason. You can then get the error codes and message with curl_error() and curl_errno():

if (curl_exec($c) === FALSE) {
    die("Curl failed: " . curl_error($c));
}

Never assume that curl calls will succeed. Always check the returned value in case something did blow up. Even if curl's set up properly, a network glitch could've killed the connection, the remote server could be down, firewall's having a bad day, etc...