How to Retrieve POST Values with `application/json` Content Type in PHP?

Reading JSON POST Using PHP

In this inquiry, the user encounters difficulties in extracting POST values and returning a JSON-encoded array from a web service after transitioning to using a JSON-based content type. The following question arose:

Question:

What is the appropriate method to retrieve POST values when the content type is application/json?

Answer:

Traditional PHP superglobals such as $_POST will not contain the desired data when the content type is application/json. To access the raw POST data, it is necessary to read from a different source.

Solution:

Utilize PHP's file_get_contents() function to retrieve the raw POST input and then parse it using json_decode(). This approach enables accessing the data in an associative array.

Additional Consideration:

The user's testing code also requires modification. CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS should be used to set the request body as a JSON string, rather than attempting to encode it as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Updated PHP Code for Testing:

$data_string = json_encode($data);

$curl = curl_init('http://webservice.local/');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST");
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_string);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
        'Content-Type: application/json',
        'Content-Length: ' . strlen($data_string))
);

$result = curl_exec($curl);
$result = json_decode($result);
var_dump($result);

Updated PHP Code for the Web Service:

header('Content-type: application/json');

// Remove duplicate line
// header('Content-type: application/json');

// Remaining code...

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