Http Client¶

Doing Requests¶

Doing requests is simple and straight forward. Doing a GET request looks like:

use Cake\Http\Client;

$http = new Client();

// Simple get
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/test.html');

// Simple get with querystring
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/search', ['q' => 'widget']);

// Simple get with querystring & additional headers
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/search', ['q' => 'widget'], [
  'headers' => ['X-Requested-With' => 'XMLHttpRequest']
]);

Doing POST and PUT requests is equally simple:

// Send a POST request with application/x-www-form-urlencoded encoded data
$http = new Client();
$response = $http->post('http://example.com/posts/add', [
  'title' => 'testing',
  'body' => 'content in the post'
]);

// Send a PUT request with application/x-www-form-urlencoded encoded data
$response = $http->put('http://example.com/posts/add', [
  'title' => 'testing',
  'body' => 'content in the post'
]);

// Other methods as well.
$http->delete(...);
$http->head(...);
$http->patch(...);

Creating Multipart Requests with Files¶

You can include files in request bodies by including a filehandle in the array:

$http = new Client();
$response = $http->post('http://example.com/api', [
  'image' => fopen('/path/to/a/file', 'r'),
]);

The filehandle will be read until its end; it will not be rewound before being read.

use Cake\Http\Client\FormData;

$data = new FormData();

// Create an XML part
$xml = $data->newPart('xml', $xmlString);
// Set the content type.
$xml->type('application/xml');
$data->add($xml);

// Create a file upload with addFile()
// This will append the file to the form data as well.
$file = $data->addFile('upload', fopen('/some/file.txt', 'r'));
$file->contentId('abc123');
$file->disposition('attachment');

// Send the request.
$response = $http->post(
    'http://example.com/api',
    (string)$data,
    ['headers' => ['Content-Type' => $data->contentType()]]
);

Sending Request Bodies¶

When dealing with REST API’s you often need to send request bodies that are not form encoded. Http\Client exposes this through the type option:

// Send a JSON request body.
$http = new Client();
$response = $http->post(
  'http://example.com/tasks',
  json_encode($data),
  ['type' => 'json']
);

The type key can either be a one of ‘json’, ‘xml’ or a full mime type. When using the type option, you should provide the data as a string. If you’re doing a GET request that needs both querystring parameters and a request body you can do the following:

// Send a JSON body in a GET request with query string parameters.
$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get(
  'http://example.com/tasks',
  ['q' => 'test', '_content' => json_encode($data)],
  ['type' => 'json']
);

Request Method Options¶

Each HTTP method takes an $options parameter which is used to provide addition request information. The following keys can be used in $options:

• headers - Array of additional headers

• cookie - Array of cookies to use.

• proxy - Array of proxy information.

• auth - Array of authentication data, the type key is used to delegate to an authentication strategy. By default Basic auth is used.

• ssl_verify_peer - defaults to true. Set to false to disable SSL certification verification (not recommended).

• ssl_verify_peer_name - defaults to true. Set to false to disable host name verification when verifying SSL certificates (not recommended).

• ssl_verify_depth - defaults to 5. Depth to traverse in the CA chain.

• ssl_verify_host - defaults to true. Validate the SSL certificate against the host name.

• ssl_cafile - defaults to built in cafile. Overwrite to use custom CA bundles.

• timeout - Duration to wait before timing out in seconds.

• type - Send a request body in a custom content type. Requires $data to either be a string, or the _content option to be set when doing GET requests.

• redirect - Number of redirects to follow. Defaults to false.

The options parameter is always the 3rd parameter in each of the HTTP methods. They can also be used when constructing Client to create scoped clients.

Authentication¶

Cake\Http\Client supports a few different authentication systems. Different authentication strategies can be added by developers. Auth strategies are called before the request is sent, and allow headers to be added to the request context.

$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/profile/1', [], [
  'auth' => ['username' => 'mark', 'password' => 'secret']
]);

$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/profile/1', [], [
  'auth' => [
    'type' => 'digest',
    'username' => 'mark',
    'password' => 'secret',
    'realm' => 'myrealm',
    'nonce' => 'onetimevalue',
    'qop' => 1,
    'opaque' => 'someval'
  ]
]);

$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/profile/1', [], [
  'auth' => [
    'type' => 'oauth',
    'consumerKey' => 'bigkey',
    'consumerSecret' => 'secret',
    'token' => '...',
    'tokenSecret' => '...',
    'realm' => 'tickets',
  ]
]);

$http = new Client([
    'headers' => ['Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $accessToken]
]);
$response = $http->get('https://example.com/api/profile/1');

$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/test.php', [], [
  'proxy' => [
    'username' => 'mark',
    'password' => 'testing',
    'proxy' => '127.0.0.1:8080',
  ]
]);

Creating Scoped Clients¶

Having to re-type the domain name, authentication and proxy settings can become tedious & error prone. To reduce the chance for mistake and relieve some of the tedium, you can create scoped clients:

// Create a scoped client.
$http = new Client([
  'host' => 'api.example.com',
  'scheme' => 'https',
  'auth' => ['username' => 'mark', 'password' => 'testing']
]);

// Do a request to api.example.com
$response = $http->get('/test.php');

The following information can be used when creating a scoped client:

• host

• scheme

• proxy

• auth

• port

• cookies

• timeout

• ssl_verify_peer

• ssl_verify_depth

• ssl_verify_host

Any of these options can be overridden by specifying them when doing requests. host, scheme, proxy, port are overridden in the request URL:

// Using the scoped client we created earlier.
$response = $http->get('http://foo.com/test.php');

The above will replace the domain, scheme, and port. However, this request will continue using all the other options defined when the scoped client was created. See Request Method Options for more information on the options supported.

Setting and Managing Cookies¶

Http\Client can also accept cookies when making requests. In addition to accepting cookies, it will also automatically store valid cookies set in responses. Any response with cookies, will have them stored in the originating instance of Http\Client. The cookies stored in a Client instance are automatically included in future requests to domain + path combinations that match:

$http = new Client([
    'host' => 'cakephp.org'
]);

// Do a request that sets some cookies
$response = $http->get('/');

// Cookies from the first request will be included
// by default.
$response2 = $http->get('/changelogs');

You can always override the auto-included cookies by setting them in the request’s $options parameters:

// Replace a stored cookie with a custom value.
$response = $http->get('/changelogs', [], [
    'cookies' => ['sessionid' => '123abc']
]);

You can add cookie objects to the client after creating it using the addCookie() method:

use Cake\Http\Cookie\Cookie;

$http = new Client([
    'host' => 'cakephp.org'
]);
$http->addCookie(new Cookie('session', 'abc123'));

Response Objects¶

class Cake\Http\Client\Response¶

Response objects have a number of methods for inspecting the response data.

// Read the entire response as a string.
$response->getStringBody();

// Prior to 3.7.0 use
$response->body();
// or
$response->body;

// Get a Psr\Http\Message\StreamInterface containing the response body
$stream = $response->getBody();

// Read a stream 100 bytes at a time.
while (!$stream->eof()) {
    echo $stream->read(100);
}

// Get some XML
$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/test.xml');
$xml = $response->getXml();

// Prior to 3.7.0
$xml = $response->xml;

// Get some JSON
$http = new Client();
$response = $http->get('http://example.com/test.json');
$json = $response->getJson();

// Prior to 3.7.0
$json = $response->json;

// Get all the headers as an associative array.
$response->getHeaders();

// Get a single header as an array.
$response->getHeader('content-type');

// Get a header as a string
$response->getHeaderLine('content-type');

// Get the response encoding
$response->getEncoding();

// Get all cookies (full data)
$response->getCookies();

// Get a single cookie's value.
$response->getCookie('session_id');

// Get a the complete data for a single cookie
// includes value, expires, path, httponly, secure keys.
$response->getCookieData('session_id');

// Was the response a 20x
$response->isOk();

// Was the response a 30x
$response->isRedirect();

// Get the status code
$response->getStatusCode();

Changing Transport Adapters¶

By default Http\Client will prefer using a curl based transport adapter. If the curl extension is not available a stream based adapter will be used instead. You can force select a transport adapter using a constructor option:

use Cake\Http\Client\Adapter\Stream;

$client = new Client(['adapter' => Stream::class]);