Receive JSON POST with PHP

Question

I’m trying to receive a JSON POST on a payment interface website, but I can’t decode it.

When I print :

echo $_POST;

I get:

Answer 1

Use $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA instead of $_POST.

It will give you POST data as is.

You will be able to decode it using json_decode() later.

Answer 2

$data = file_get_contents('php://input');
echo $data;

This worked for me.

Answer 3

It is worth pointing out that if you use json_decode(file_get_contents("php://input")) (as others have mentioned), this will fail if the string is not valid JSON.

This can be simply resolved by first checking if the JSON is valid. i.e.

function isValidJSON($str) {
   json_decode($str);
   return json_last_error() == JSON_ERROR_NONE;
}

$json_params = file_get_contents("php://input");

if (strlen($json_params) > 0 && isValidJSON($json_params))
  $decoded_params = json_decode($json_params);

Edit: Note that removing strlen($json_params) above may result in subtle errors, as json_last_error() does not change when null or a blank string is passed, as shown here: http://ideone.com/va3u8U

Answer 4

Read the doc:

In general, php://input should be used instead of $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA.

as in the php Manual

Answer 5

I'd like to post an answer that also uses curl to get the contents, and mpdf to save the results to a pdf, so you get all the steps of a tipical use case. It's only raw code (so to be adapted to your needs), but it works.

// import mpdf somewhere
require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/mpdf/vendor/autoload.php';

// get mpdf instance
$mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf();

// src php file
$mysrcfile = 'http://www.somesite.com/somedir/mysrcfile.php';
// where we want to save the pdf
$mydestination = 'http://www.somesite.com/somedir/mypdffile.pdf';

// encode $_POST data to json
$json = json_encode($_POST);

// init curl > pass the url of the php file we want to pass 
// data to and then print out to pdf
$ch = curl_init($mysrcfile);

// tell not to echo the results
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );

// set the proper headers
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [ 'Content-Type: application/json', 'Content-Length: ' . strlen($json) ]);

// pass the json data to $mysrcfile
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $json);

// exec curl and save results
$html = curl_exec($ch);

curl_close($ch);

// parse html and then save to a pdf file
$mpdf->WriteHTML($html);
$this->mpdf->Output($mydestination, \Mpdf\Output\Destination::FILE);

In $mysrcfile I'll read json data like this (as stated on previous answers):

$data = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'));
// (then process it and build the page source)

Answer 6

If you already have your parameters set like $_POST['eg'] for example and you don't wish to change it, simply do it like this:

$_POST = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'), true);

This will save you the hassle of changing all $_POST to something else and allow you to still make normal post requests if you wish to take this line out.