Call a REST API in PHP

Use Guzzle. It's a "PHP HTTP client that makes it easy to work with HTTP/1.1 and takes the pain out of consuming web services". Working with Guzzle is much easier than working with cURL.

Here's an example from the Web site:

$client = new GuzzleHttp\Client();
$res = $client->get('https://api.github.com/user', [
    'auth' =>  ['user', 'pass']
]);
echo $res->getStatusCode();           // 200
echo $res->getHeader('content-type'); // 'application/json; charset=utf8'
echo $res->getBody();                 // {"type":"User"...'
var_export($res->json());             // Outputs the JSON decoded data

You can access any REST API with PHPs cURL Extension. However, the API Documentation (Methods, Parameters etc.) must be provided by your Client!

Example:

// Method: POST, PUT, GET etc
// Data: array("param" => "value") ==> index.php?param=value

function CallAPI($method, $url, $data = false)
{
    $curl = curl_init();

    switch ($method)
    {
        case "POST":
            curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

            if ($data)
                curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
            break;
        case "PUT":
            curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PUT, 1);
            break;
        default:
            if ($data)
                $url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, http_build_query($data));
    }

    // Optional Authentication:
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "username:password");

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    $result = curl_exec($curl);

    curl_close($curl);

    return $result;
}

If you have a url and your php supports it, you could just call file_get_contents:

$response = file_get_contents('http://example.com/path/to/api/call?param1=5');

if $response is JSON, use json_decode to turn it into php array:

$response = json_decode($response);

if $response is XML, use simple_xml class:

$response = new SimpleXMLElement($response);

http://sg2.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples-basic.php

CURL is the simplest way to go. Here is a simple call

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "THE URL TO THE SERVICE");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, POST DATA);
$result = curl_exec($ch);


print_r($result);
curl_close($ch);