Different content types cause the message body to split

broken-500.php

<?php
	$url = 'http://api.app.dev:3000/messages';
	$data = array(
		'data' =>
		json_encode(array(
			'test' => 'hello & more details',
			'fail' => 'asdf;sadfsfa='
		))
	);

	$options = array(
	    'http' => array(
	    	// combining this with the params that are only partially JSON causes a 500 error
	    	// This makes me think this is not how you are doing it, but I wanted to include it as an example
	        'header'  => "Content-type: application/json\r\n",
	        'method'  => 'POST',
	        'content' => http_build_query($data),
	    ),
	);
	$context = stream_context_create($options);
	$result  = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);

	// this breaks before it even gets to my code, so I can't see what the params look like
	// and I'm guessing it's not how you have it set up since those are getting through to my code

	var_dump($result);
?>

broken-on-parsing.php

<?php
	$url = 'http://api.app.dev:3000/messages';
	$data = array(
		'data' => array(
			'test' => 'hello & more details',
			'fail' => 'asdf;sadfsfa='
		)
	);

	$options = array(
	    'http' => array(
	    	// the content type here or multipart/form-data both cause the body to be split
	    	// when the content is put through #json_encode
	        'header'  => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
	        'method'  => 'POST',
	        'content' => json_encode($data)
	    ),
	);
	$context = stream_context_create($options);
	$result  = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);

	// server sees {"{\"data\":\"{\\\"test\\\":\\\"hello "=>nil, "more details\\\",\\\"fail\\\":\\\"asdf"=>nil, "sadfsfa"=>"\\\"}\"}"}

	var_dump($result);
?>

works-form-json.php

<?php
	$url = 'http://api.app.dev:3000/messages';
	$data = array(
		'data' =>
		// this matches how the data is currently coming through, right?
		json_encode(array(
			'test' => 'hello & more details',
			'fail' => 'asdf;sadfsfa='
		))
	);

	$options = array(
	    'http' => array(
	    	// setting this seems to keep the JSON from attempting to be parsed until I'm ready
	        'header'  => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
	        'method'  => 'POST',
	        'content' => http_build_query($data),
	    ),
	);
	$context = stream_context_create($options);
	$result  = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);

	// server sees {"data"=>"{\"test\":\"hello & more details\",\"fail\":\"asdf;sadfsfa=\"}"}

	var_dump($result);
?>

works-form-only.php

<?php
	$url = 'http://api.app.dev:3000/messages';
	$data = array(
		'data' =>
		// just setting everything as form attributes also works even though we state that we expect JSON
		array(
			'test' => 'hello & more details',
			'fail' => 'asdf;sadfsfa='
		)
	);

	$options = array(
	    'http' => array(
	        'header'  => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
	        'method'  => 'POST',
	        'content' => http_build_query($data),
	    ),
	);
	$context = stream_context_create($options);
	$result  = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);

	// server sees {"data"=>"{\"test\":\"hello & more details\",\"fail\":\"asdf;sadfsfa=\"}"}

	var_dump($result);
?>

works.php

<?php
	$url = 'http://api.app.dev:3000/messages';
	$data = array(
		'data' => array(
			'test' => 'hello & more details',
			'fail' => 'asdf;sadfsfa='
		)
	);

	$options = array(
	    'http' => array(
	    	// changing the content-type to json allows all of the parameters to come through cleanly
	        'header'  => "Content-type: application/json\r\n",
	        'method'  => 'POST',
	        'content' => json_encode($data)
	    ),
	);
	$context = stream_context_create($options);
	$result  = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);

	// server sees {"data"=>"{\"test\":\"hello & more details\",\"fail\":\"asdf;sadfsfa=\"}"}
	
	var_dump($result);
?>

The works.php example would require a minor code change on my end, since Rails will automatically parse the JSON instead of me trying to do it.

works-form-json.php would not require a code change on my end, I believe.

The works-form-only.php example would also require a code change but seems to be the cleanest since we don't have to convert back and forth to JSON as an intermediate format.