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HTTP Fetching in PHP Without cURL

On some shared hosting accounts, cURL, fopen or file_get_contents functions may be disabled 'for security reasons', yet you can still achieve HTTP fetching using socket functions.

This simple class of code will allow you to do a wide range of HTTP fetching. It should be easy enough to customise should you feel the need to. Check out the 3 examples provided at the foot of the code to try it out. You should be able to use this code with plain old PHP, with no extra functionality.

<?php
 
class streams
{
/*
A class to perform HTTP requests,handy if cURL is unavailable    
See the examples at the foot of the page for usage
*/
 
// Prepares some variables and HTTP headers for the fetch
    public function read_stream_http_variables($request,$uri,&$array)
    {
    $line = preg_replace("'^[^/]+//'",'',$uri);
    preg_match("'^([a-z0-9-.:@]+)(.+)$'i",$line,$n);
        if(!isset($n[1]))
            RETURN FALSE;
        if(preg_match("':d+$'",$n[1],$o))
        {
        $n[2] = $o[0].$n[2];
        $n[1] = preg_replace("'{$o[0]}$'",'',$n[1]);
        }
    $n[1] = trim(strtolower($n[1]));
    $n[2] = trim($n[2]);
 
    $array['host'] = $n[1];
    $array['url'] = $n[2];
 
        if(!isset($array['fputs']) || !is_array($array['fputs']))
            $array['fputs'] = array();
    array_unshift($array['fputs'],$request.' '.$array['url']." HTTP/1.1\r\n");
        if(!isset($array['fputs']['User-Agent']))
            $array['fputs']['User-Agent'] = 'User-Agent: Mozilla/6.0 (Windows; Windows NT 4.0; en-US;)'."\r\n";
        if(!isset($array['fputs']['Accept']))    
            $array['fputs']['Accept'] = "Accept: */*\r\n";
    array_push($array['fputs'],"Host: {$array['host']}\r\n");             
        if(!isset($array['fputs']['Connection']))     
            $array['fputs']['Connection'] = "Connection: Close\r\n";
 
        if($request == 'POST' && isset($array['POST']))
        {
        array_push($array['fputs'],"Content-Length: ".strlen($array['POST'])."\r\n");
        array_push($array['fputs'],'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'."\r\n");
        array_push($array['fputs'],"\r\n{$array['POST']}");
        }
        else
            array_push($array['fputs'],"\r\n");
    }
// Perform the HTTP request. HTTP Headers and the HTTP document are separated     
    public function read_stream($request,$host,$port,$timeout)
    {
    $fp = fsockopen($host,$port,$errno,$errstr,$timeout);
        if(!$fp) 
            RETURN array(0,$errno,$errstr);
        else
        {
            if($request) // For separating the HEAD and BODY of HTTP requests
                $head = TRUE;
            else
                $head = FALSE;
            if(count($data['fputs']))
                fputs($fp,implode('',$data['fputs']));    
             while(!feof($fp)) 
             {
                if($head)
                {
                    if(!trim($line = fgets($fp)))
                        $head = FALSE;
                    else
                    {
                    $line = preg_split("':\s*'",rtrim($line),2);
                    @$data['headers'][strtolower($line[0])] = $line[1];
                    }
                }
                else
                    $data['output'] .= fread($fp,65536);
             }
             if(isset($data['headers']['transfer-encoding']) || isset($data['headers']['content-encoding']))
                 $data['output'] = $this->decode_body($data['headers'],$data['output']);
        }
    }
// 'Normalizes' the HTTP document if any transfer/content encoding was used    
    public function decode_body($info,$str,$eol = "\r\n")
    {
    $tmp = $str;
    $add = strlen ($eol);
    $str = '';
        if(isset($info['transfer-encoding']) && $info['transfer-encoding'] == 'chunked')
        {
            do
            {
            $tmp = ltrim($tmp);
            $pos = strpos($tmp,$eol);
            $len = hexdec(substr($tmp,0,$pos ));
                if(isset($info['content-encoding'] ) )
                    $str .= gzinflate(substr($tmp,($pos + $add + 10 ),$len ));
 
                else
                    $str .= substr($tmp,($pos + $add ),$len);
            $tmp = substr($tmp,($len + $pos + $add ));
            $check = trim($tmp);
            } while(!empty($check));
        }
    elseif(isset($info['content-encoding']))
        $str = gzinflate(substr($tmp,10));
    else
        RETURN $tmp;
 
    return $str;
    } 
}
 
    // Example 1 - HTTP Fetching (GET)
    $_streams = new streams;
    $url = 'www.yahoo.com/';
 
    $data = array();
    $_streams->read_stream_http_variables('GET',$url,$data);
    $_streams->read_stream(1,$data['host'],80,5,$data);
    print_r($data);
    exit(0);
 
    // Example 2 - HTTP Fetching (POST)
    $_streams = new streams;
    $url = 'www.yahoo.com/';
 
    $data = array('POST'=>'postvar1=1&postvar2=2','output'=>'','headers'=>array());
    $_streams->read_stream_http_variables('POST',$url,$data);
    $_streams->read_stream(1,$data['host'],80,5,$data);
    print_r($data);
    exit(0);
 
    // Example 3 - WHOIS Fetching
    $_streams = new streams;
    $domain = 'example.net';
 
    $data = array('fputs'=>array($domain."\r\n"),'output'=>'');
    $_streams->read_stream(0,'whois.internic.net',43,5,$data);
    print_r($data);
    exit(0);
 
 
?>
 

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