TIP: communicating with external URLs and external sites

Submitted by webel on Sat, 2015-02-14 09:14
Keywords

Your main ally here is drupal_http_request($url, array $options = array()):

Performs an HTTP request.

This is a flexible and powerful HTTP client implementation. Correctly handles GET, POST, PUT or any other HTTP requests. Handles redirects.

What you can't handle with that you can usually handle with lower-level PHP cURL functions (see external links).

Note that, by comparision drupal_goto($path, ...) is only intended for on-site:

Sends the user to a different page.

This issues an on-site HTTP redirect. The function makes sure the redirected URL is formatted correctly.

Usually the redirected URL is constructed from this function's input parameters. However you may override that behavior by setting a destination in either the $_REQUEST-array (i.e. by using the query string of an URI) This is used to direct the user back to the proper page after completing a form. For example, after editing a post on the 'admin/content'-page or after having logged on using the 'user login'-block in a sidebar. The function drupal_get_destination() can be used to help set the destination URL.

Drupal will ensure that messages set by drupal_set_message() and other session data are written to the database before the user is redirected.

This function ends the request; use it instead of a return in your menu callback.

Links (external)
7 common.inc drupal_http_request($url, array $options = array())
PHP: string base64_encode ( string $data )
PHP: string urlencode ( string $str )
PHP: resource curl_init ([ string $url = NULL ] )
PHP: bool curl_setopt ( resource $ch , int $option , mixed $value )
PHP: mixed curl_exec ( resource $ch )
HTTP authentication with PHP ¶
[on-site only] 7 common.inc: drupal_goto($path = '', array $options = array(), $http_response_code = 302)
TIP: What Every Developer Should Know About URLs [special characters in URLs]