PHP “php://input” vs $_POST

Question

I have been directed to use the method php://input instead of $_POST when interacting with Ajax requests from JQuery. What I do not understand is t

Answer 1

php://input can give you the raw bytes of the data. This is useful if the POSTed data is a JSON encoded structure, which is often the case for an AJAX POST request.

Here's a function to do just that:

  /**
   * Returns the JSON encoded POST data, if any, as an object.
   * 
   * @return Object|null
   */
  private function retrieveJsonPostData()
  {
    // get the raw POST data
    $rawData = file_get_contents("php://input");

    // this returns null if not valid json
    return json_decode($rawData);
  }

The $_POST array is more useful when you're handling key-value data from a form, submitted by a traditional POST. This only works if the POSTed data is in a recognised format, usually application/x-www-form-urlencoded (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.4 for details).