In Java I can write a really basic JSP index.jsp
like so:
<% request.getRequestDispatcher("/home.action").forward(request, response); %>
The effect of this is that a user requesting index.jsp
(or just the containing directory assuming index.jsp
is a default document for the directory) will see home.action
without a browser redirect, i.e. the [forward](http://java.sun.com/javaee/5/docs/api/javax/servlet/RequestDispatcher.html#forward(javax.servlet.ServletRequest,%20javax.servlet.ServletResponse)) happens on the server side.
Can I do something similar with PHP? I suspect it's possible to configure Apache to handle this case, but since I might not have access to the relevant Apache configuration I'd be interested in a solution that relies on PHP alone.
The trick about Request.Forward is that it gives you a clean, new request to the action you want. Therefore you have no residu from the current request, and for example, no problems with scripts that rely on the java eq of $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] being something.
You could just drop in a CURL class and write a simple function to do this:
<?php
/**
* CURLHandler handles simple HTTP GETs and POSTs via Curl
*
* @author SchizoDuckie
* @version 1.0
* @access public
*/
class CURLHandler
{
/**
* CURLHandler::Get()
*
* Executes a standard GET request via Curl.
* Static function, so that you can use: CurlHandler::Get('http://www.google.com');
*
* @param string $url url to get
* @return string HTML output
*/
public static function Get($url)
{
return self::doRequest('GET', $url);
}
/**
* CURLHandler::Post()
*
* Executes a standard POST request via Curl.
* Static function, so you can use CurlHandler::Post('http://www.google.com', array('q'=>'belfabriek'));
* If you want to send a File via post (to e.g. PHP's $_FILES), prefix the value of an item with an @ !
* @param string $url url to post data to
* @param Array $vars Array with key=>value pairs to post.
* @return string HTML output
*/
public static function Post($url, $vars, $auth = false)
{
return self::doRequest('POST', $url, $vars, $auth);
}
/**
* CURLHandler::doRequest()
* This is what actually does the request
* <pre>
* - Create Curl handle with curl_init
* - Set options like CURLOPT_URL, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER and CURLOPT_HEADER
* - Set eventual optional options (like CURLOPT_POST and CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS)
* - Call curl_exec on the interface
* - Close the connection
* - Return the result or throw an exception.
* </pre>
* @param mixed $method Request Method (Get/ Post)
* @param mixed $url URI to get or post to
* @param mixed $vars Array of variables (only mandatory in POST requests)
* @return string HTML output
*/
public static function doRequest($method, $url, $vars=array(), $auth = false)
{
$curlInterface = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array ($curlInterface, array(
CURLOPT_URL => $url,
CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 2,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION =>1,
CURLOPT_HEADER => 0));
if (strtoupper($method) == 'POST')
{
curl_setopt_array($curlInterface, array(
CURLOPT_POST => 1,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => http_build_query($vars))
);
}
if($auth !== false)
{
curl_setopt($curlInterface, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $auth['username'] . ":" . $auth['password']);
}
$result = curl_exec ($curlInterface);
curl_close ($curlInterface);
if($result === NULL)
{
throw new Exception('Curl Request Error: '.curl_errno($curlInterface) . " - " . curl_error($curlInterface));
}
else
{
return($result);
}
}
}
Just dump this in class.CURLHandler.php and you can do this:
ofcourse, using $_REQUEST is not really safe (you should check $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']) but you get the point.
<?php
include('class.CURLHandler.php');
die CURLHandler::doRequest($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'], 'http://server/myaction', $_REQUEST);
?>
Ofcourse, CURL's not installed everywhere but we've got native PHP curl emulators for that.
Also, this gives you even more flexibility than Request.Forward as you could also catch and post-process the output.