LazyCurl

A PHP class which brings back @-prefix usage in CURL requests to live, even in PHP 7. http://lazycurl.net/

About

The PHP CURL library is an extremely powerful tool supporting a wide range of protocols. Yet it may be too powerful that there are over 140 customizable options and some of them are affecting one another. LazyCurl is developed to provide an easy-to-use interface for most HTTP requests.

The @-prefix usage in PHP CURL was once a handy method for uploading file in HTTP POST requests. It was deprecated as of PHP 5.5 for various reasons. LazyCurl provides a secure approach in using @-prefix and extends its capability from local file to HTTP URL.

Features

• Simplify HTTP CURL requests.
• Default using the best SSL CURL options with updated CA certificates.
• Logs HTTP requests being sent and captures responses including redirections.
• Extracts all cookies from HTTP responses.
• Supports multi-dimensional array in HTTP POST requests.
• Provides @-prefix usage in PHP 5 and PHP 7 with @URL capability.
• Streaming transfers large file without memory concern.
• Supports FTP stream upload single file.
• Only 11 methods to achieve everything above.

How To Use @-prefix With LazyCurl

For example, if you want to upload some files with form data:

<?php
	$fields = array(
		'username' => 'John Smith',
		'email' => 'john.smith@example.com',
		'photo' => '@/local/path/photo.jpg',
		'application' => '@http://example.com/user/john.smith/signed.pdf',
		'twitter' => '@john.smith.does.not.exist'
	);
	$files = array(
		'@/local/path/photo.jpg',
		'@http://example.com/user/john.smith/signed.pdf'
	);
	$curl = new LazyCurl();
	$curl->exec('https://example.com/path/to/target.php', 'POST', $fields, $files);
	$curl->close();
?>

That’s it. The target PHP will receive text fields ‘username’, ‘email’ and ‘twitter’, together with 2 uploaded files.

System Requirement

• PHP 5.3+ (recommended 5.5+ for better @-prefix handling)
• CURL Library 7.19.4+ (recommended 7.52+ for better security with TLS v1.3)
• PHP Fileinfo extension (optional for mime type detection)
• PHP OpenSSL extension (required for secure connections)
• Read / Write permission is required for persistent cookies and temporary downloaded files

Tested Environment

• PHP 5.3.0 with CURL Library 7.19.4 (destination may reject SSL v2 / v3 connections due to known vulnerability)
• PHP 5.4.0 with CURL Library 7.24.0 (destination may reject SSL v2 / v3 connections due to known vulnerability)
• PHP 5.5.0 with CURL Library 7.30.0 (destination may reject SSL v2 / v3 connections due to known vulnerability)
• PHP 5.6.0 with CURL Library 7.36.0
• PHP 7.0.3 with CURL Library 7.46.0 (fatal error due to a PHP bug #71225 since 7.0.0, fixed in 7.0.3)
• PHP 7.1.0 with CURL Library 7.51.0
• PHP 7.4.33 with CURL Library 7.74.0

Examples

LazyCurl comes with 6 examples to show you how to use all 11 methods in different scenarios. Simply upload to web server and open in browser to see them in live.

• http_get_basic.php - get response, log and cookie from a simple HTTP GET request
• http_get_advanced.php - enable cookie, setting CURL options and reset to default
• http_post_basic.php - send HTTP POST request with an associative multi-dimensional array
• http_post_advanced.php - uploading local and remote file using @-prefix
• file_transfer.php - stream download HTTP file and stream upload to FTP server
• file_cookie.php - save persistent cookie to local file

Notes

Additional notes are embedded in the PHP class. It is strongly recommended you read them carefully to fully understand its capabilities and limitations.

License

The contents of this repository is released under the MIT license.