How do I make an asynchronous GET request in PHP

Question

I want to GET request to another script on a different server. How do I do this?

In one case, I just need to request an external script without the need for any output.

make_request('http://www.externalsite.com/script1.php?variable=45'); //example usage

In the second case, I need to get the text output.

$output = make_request('http://www.externalsite.com/script2.php?variable=45');
echo $output; //string output

 I do not want to mess around with CURL as this isn't really the job of CURL. I also do not want to make use of http_get as I do not have the PECL extensions.

Would fsockopen work? If so, how do I do this without reading in the contents of the file? Is there no other way?

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

Works with both POST and GET requests:

  // $type must equal 'GET' or 'POST'
  function curl_request_async($url, $params, $type='POST')
  {
      foreach ($params as $key => &$val) {
        if (is_array($val)) $val = implode(',', $val);
        $post_params[] = $key.'='.urlencode($val);
      }
      $post_string = implode('&', $post_params);

      $parts=parse_url($url);

      $fp = fsockopen($parts['host'],
          isset($parts['port'])?$parts['port']:80,
          $errno, $errstr, 30);

      // Data goes in the path for a GET request
      if('GET' == $type) $parts['path'] .= '?'.$post_string;

      $out = "$type ".$parts['path']." HTTP/1.1\r\n";
      $out.= "Host: ".$parts['host']."\r\n";
      $out.= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
      $out.= "Content-Length: ".strlen($post_string)."\r\n";
      $out.= "Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";
      // Data goes in the request body for a POST request
      if ('POST' == $type && isset($post_string)) $out.= $post_string;

      fwrite($fp, $out);
      fclose($fp);
  }

Hope it helps!!