Sending URL requests (POST/GET) in PHP using curl

php-url-request.php

$url = 'https://example.com/api.json';
$fields = array(
	'key1'=>urlencode('value 1'),
	'key2'=>urlencode('value 2'),
	'key3'=>urlencode('value 3')
);

//url-ify the data for the POST
$fields_string = "";
foreach($fields as $key=>$value) { $fields_string .= $key.'='.$value.'&'; }
rtrim($fields_string, '&');

//open connection
$ch = curl_init();

//set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST, count($fields));
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields_string);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // stop return output

//execute post
$result = curl_exec($ch);

//close connection
curl_close($ch);