I have created a React application from which I am calling my server built on PHP.
The following is how I call my PHP file:
const requestOptions = {
method: 'POST',
headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },
body: JSON.stringify({ name, username, password }),
};
console.log(requestOptions);
fetch('http://localhost/crud/requests/signup.php', requestOptions)
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data));
Here is what I have in the PHP file:
if (isset($_POST) && !empty($_POST)) {
// do something
}
When I print the $_POST variable, I get an empty array. Even the $_RESPONSE is empty.
But when I tried to print the input stream like this:
print_r(file_get_contents('php://input'));
Everything seems to be fine. Can anyone explain why does this happen? I tried to read it in the documentation & looked up on some forums and blogs but wasn't satisfied with the answers.
PHP’s built-in form support is only able to parse application/x-www-form-urlencoded forms and multipart/form-data forms. What you are actually sending is a JSON-serialized object, with the incorrect MIME type of application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
To actually send an application/x-www-form-urlencoded form, use URLSearchParams instead of JSON.stringify:
fetch('http://localhost/crud/requests/signup.php', {
method: 'POST',
body: new URLSearchParams({ name, username, password }),
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data));
There is no need to set Content-Type explicitly in this case: the browser will do that automatically. To send a multipart/form-data payload (which you may need to do if you want to upload larger files), use a FormData object instead.
If you want to send JSON after all, you should send it with the correct MIME type in the header, application/json. On the PHP side, you will be resigned to parsing the payload manually using json_decode.