duckduckgo image search libcurl php

duckduckgo.imagesearch.php

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
$search_query="Nintendo 64 controller";

require_once('hhb_.inc.php');
$hc=new hhb_curl('',true);
$hc->setopt_array(array(
    CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT=>10,
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT=>20,
    // without a fake useragent, you will get the error: <div id="error_homepage" style="display:block">Oops, there was an error. &nbsp;Please try again.<br><br>If it persists, please email error@duckduckgo.com<br><img src="https://improving.duckduckgo.com/t/fpbot">
    CURLOPT_USERAGENT=>'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0',
));
// this is required to get a "vqd" token,
// some shit duckduckgo use instead of cookies..?
$url='https://duckduckgo.com/?'.http_build_query(array(
    'q'=>$search_query,
    't'=>'h_',
    'iax'=>'images',
    'ia'=>'images'
));
$html=$hc->exec($url)->getStdOut();
// vqd='3-142216309694420347760037715005911496568-220342727435306949816443430106535095457';
$vqd_token='';
if(!preg_match("/vqd\s*\=\s*\'(?<vqd_token>[^\']*)/",$html,$matches)){
    var_dump($html);
    die("error: unable to extract vqd token");
}
$vqd_token=$matches['vqd_token'];

$url2='https://duckduckgo.com/d.js?'.http_build_query(array (
    'q' => $search_query,
    't' => 'A',
    'l' => 'us-en',
    's' => '0',
    'a' => 'h_',
    'dl' => 'en',
    'ct' => 'NO',
    'ss_mkt' => 'us',
    'vqd' => $vqd_token,
    'p_ent' => 'information appliance',
    'ex' => '-1',
    'sp' => '0',
    'v7exp' => 'a',
    'sltexp' => 'a',
  )
);
$html=$hc->exec($url2)->getStdOut();
// "results":[{"title":"Nintendo 64 controller
if(!preg_match("/\\\"results\\\"\\:(?<images_json>.+?\\}\\])/",$html,$matches)){
    die("error: unable to extract images json...");
}
$images_json=$matches["images_json"];
$images=json_decode($images_json,true);
var_dump($images);