How to Create a Simple Api in PHP and Call Using cURL

2024-08-12

This is a straight forward implementation of the API in the PHP. Of course, in a typical production scenario, there would be other requirements, most importantly security and complex business logic requirements that would require DB calls etc..

I am trying to give a basic idea on which you can build your implementation.

//	If you want to restrict access calls from a particular domain
header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://myfrontend.com");

$uri  =  $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$method  =  $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];

if ($method  ==  'POST'  &&  $uri  ==  '/id') {
	
	$name = $_POST['name'];

	//	implement your logic
    //  for example: fetch the email address based on 
    //  the value of name received in the request body

	//	return your response
	if (true) {
		http_response_code(200);
		echo  json_encode([
            'email' => $email_address, 
            'msg'  =>  "Success - Address found.",  
            'color'  =>  "green"
        ]);
	} else {
		http_response_code(404);
		echo  json_encode(['msg'  =>  "Address not found. Please try again.",  'color'  =>  "red"]);
	}
} elseif ($method  ==  'POST'  &&  $uri  ==  '/verify') {

	//	implement logic for another API 

} else {	
    
    //	implement logic for unknow API calls

	http_response_code(404);
	echo  json_encode(['msg'  =>  "We cannot find what you're looking for."]);
}

This is how you’d call the API from the front-end in vanilla JS

const  data  =  {
	name:  document.getElementById('first-name').innerText,
}

fetch("https://api.tushargoel.com/id",  {
	method:  "POST",
	body:  Object.entries(data).map(([k,v])=>{return  k+'='+v}).join('&'),
	headers:  {"Content-type":  "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8"}
})
.then((response)  =>  {
	if  (response.status  ===  200)  {
		return  response.json();
	} else if (response.status  ===  404)  {
		return  response.json();
	} else {
		throw  new  Error("Something went wrong on API server!");
	}
})
.then((response)  =>  {
	document.getElementById('api-response').innerText  =  response.msg;
	document.getElementById('api-response').style.color  =  response.color;
})
.catch((error)  =>  {
	console.log(error);
	document.getElementById('api-response').innerText  =  error.error;
	document.getElementById('api-response').style.color  =  error.color;
});

return;

Call API with cURL

function callTGApi()  {
	$ch  =  curl_init();
	
	curl_setopt($ch,  CURLOPT_URL,  "https://tushargoel.com/api/gyan");

	curl_setopt($ch,  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,  1);
	curl_setopt($ch,  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST,  "GET");

	/*	Include headers as required */
	$headers = array();
	$headers[] = "Accept: application/json";
	$headers[] = "Authorization: Bearer APIKEY";
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
	
	$result  =  curl_exec($ch);

	if  (curl_errno($ch))  {
		error_log(curl_error($ch));
		echo  'Error:'  .  curl_error($ch);
		return  "ERROR";
	}

	curl_close  ($ch);
	return  "SUCCESS";

}