Many developers find HTTP requests are abstracted away from them; indeed, many PHP developers will never need to understand how an HTTP request actually works under the hood.
PHP developers often work with HTTP networks when developing. Indeed, PHP contains some core functions that are great when working with HTTP communication.
Let's take a look at an HTTP request at a high-level using a tool called curl. The curl is essentially a command-line tool that allows us to simulate network requests. It allows you to simulate the transfer of data using various protocols.
The curl projects produce both the libcurl
and curl
command line tool. Libcurl is a library that PHP supports, allowing you to connect and communicate over a list of protocols in PHP, providing your installation has it installed.
In this case, however, we will be using the command-line tool to simulate requests.
Let's start off by making a simple curl
request...