PHP - Debugging Curl

Question

I\'d like to see what the post fields in the request are before I send it. (For debugging purposes).

The PHP library (class) I am using is already made (not by me),

Answer 1

Output debug info to STDERR:

$curlHandler = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curlHandler, [
    CURLOPT_URL => 'https://postman-echo.com/get?foo=bar',
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,

    /**
     * Specify debug option
     */
    CURLOPT_VERBOSE => true,
]);

curl_exec($curlHandler);

curl_close($curlHandler);

Output debug info to file:

$curlHandler = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curlHandler, [
    CURLOPT_URL => 'https://postman-echo.com/get?foo=bar',
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,

    /**
     * Specify debug option.
     */
    CURLOPT_VERBOSE => true,

    /**
     * Specify log file.
     * Make sure that the folder is writable.
     */
    CURLOPT_STDERR => fopen('./curl.log', 'w+'),
]);

curl_exec($curlHandler);

curl_close($curlHandler);

See https://github.com/andriichuk/php-curl-cookbook#debug-request

Answer 2

You can enable the CURLOPT_VERBOSE option:

curl_setopt($curlhandle, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);

When CURLOPT_VERBOSE is set, output is written to STDERR or the file specified using CURLOPT_STDERR. The output is very informative.

You can also use tcpdump or wireshark to watch the network traffic.

Answer 3

You can enable the CURLOPT_VERBOSE option and log that information to a (temporary) CURLOPT_STDERR:

// CURLOPT_VERBOSE: TRUE to output verbose information. Writes output to STDERR, 
// or the file specified using CURLOPT_STDERR.
curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);

$verbose = fopen('php://temp', 'w+');
curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_STDERR, $verbose);

You can then read it after curl has done the request:

$result = curl_exec($handle);
if ($result === FALSE) {
    printf("cUrl error (#%d): %s<br>\n", curl_errno($handle),
           htmlspecialchars(curl_error($handle)));
}

rewind($verbose);
$verboseLog = stream_get_contents($verbose);

echo "Verbose information:\n<pre>", htmlspecialchars($verboseLog), "</pre>\n";

(I originally answered similar but more extended in a related question.)

More information like metrics about the last request is available via curl_getinfo. This information can be useful for debugging curl requests, too. A usage example, I would normally wrap that into a function:

$version = curl_version();
extract(curl_getinfo($handle));
$metrics = <<<EOD
URL....: $url
Code...: $http_code ($redirect_count redirect(s) in $redirect_time secs)
Content: $content_type Size: $download_content_length (Own: $size_download) Filetime: $filetime
Time...: $total_time Start @ $starttransfer_time (DNS: $namelookup_time Connect: $connect_time Request: $pretransfer_time)
Speed..: Down: $speed_download (avg.) Up: $speed_upload (avg.)
Curl...: v{$version['version']}
EOD;

Answer 4

Here is an even simplier way, by writing directly to php error output

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_STDERR, fopen('php://stderr', 'w'));

Answer 5

To just get the info of a CURL request do this:

$response = curl_exec($ch);

$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
var_dump($info);

Answer 6

If you just want a very quick way to debug the result:

$ch = curl_init();
curl_exec($ch);
$curl_error = curl_error($ch);
echo "<script>console.log($curl_error);</script>"