Better way to CURL to WCF

Question

I am able to post to a web-service I wrote in C# from PHP via a CURL request, but I cannot get the request to go through correctly. No matter what I do, the only way that I can get the post to show up is if I json_encode the form data headers. So my PHP code then ends up like so:

$user = array('id'=>5, 'first_name' => 'First', 'last_name' => 'Last');

$uch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_URL,"http://localhost:50115/Service1.svc/postUser");
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode("user=" . json_encode($user)));
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
                                            'Content-Type: application/json'
                                            ));
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($uch);

When I set the line:

curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode("user=" . json_encode($user)));

to:

curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array("user" => json_encode($user)));
--OR--
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 
                    http_build_query(array("user" => json_encode($user))));
--OR--
curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($user));

there is no error in the PHP, the C# service does not return an error (I do have the setting to return exceptions set in the config), and the break-point on the function never gets hit.

On the C# side, I have my interface and service set up like so:

//Interface
[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method="POST",
            BodyStyle=WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare, //Any other value, the break-point 
                                                //will not trigger
            RequestFormat=WebMessageFormat.Json,
            UriTemplate = "postUser")]
void PostUser(string user);

//Service
public void PostUser(string user)
{
    var request = user;
    int i = 5; //Debug set here
}

When the break-point hits, I am able to see that user has the value of:

user={"id":5,"first_name":"First","last_name":"Last"}

What I would like to have is for the value of user to simply be:

{"id":5,"first_name":"First","last_name":"Last"}

Is it possible to receive my response like this? If so, what do I need to change to accomplish it?

Is the value of user actually user={"id":5,"first_name":"First","last_name":"Last"}, or is that what appears in the debugger? Wouldn't json_encode($user) do the trick? — Tim
@Tim That is the actual value of user. If I want just the json part, I have to use var json = user.Split('=')[1]; — Jacob Lambert
Caveat: I don't know PHP, but looking at the documentation for json_encode, it appears (at a glance) that json_encode($user) would do the trick. So you would have curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode(json_encode($user));. — Tim
When I use json_encode($user), the break-point never gets hit and no errors are generated. — Jacob Lambert

Jacob Lambert Jacob Lambert · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-02T22:30:15

After trying multiple combinations in PHP and C#, I finally got it to work. In PHP, the CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS needed to be set with:

curl_setopt($uch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode(array("user" => json_encode($user))));

Then, in C#, I needed to change BodyStyle=WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare to BodyStyle=WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped;

Better way to CURL to WCF

1 Answers