What is CURL in PHP?

Why we need PHP CURL ?
To send HTTP GET requests, simply we can use file_get_contents() method.

file_get_contens('http://hayageek.com')

But sending POST request and handling errors are not easy with file_get_contents().

Sending HTTP requests is very simple with PHP CURL.You need to follow the four steps to send request.
step 1). Initialize CURL session

1	$ch = curl_init();

step 2). Provide options for the CURL session

1 2 3

curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,"http://hayageek.com"); curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true); curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER, true); //if you want headers

CURLOPT_URL -> URL to fetch
CURLOPT_HEADER -> to include the header/not
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER -> if it is set to true, data is returned as string instead of outputting it.

step 3). Execute the CURL session

1	$output=curl_exec($ch);

step 4). Close the session

curl_close($ch);

Note: You can check whether CURL enabled/not with the following code.




$ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);

    curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);

//  curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER, false);

    $output=curl_exec($ch);

    curl_close($ch);

    return $output;