Is it possible to use cURL to stream upload a file using POST?

Question

Or does PHP not allow this? I have read it is possible using PUT but the server is expecting POST only.

Answer 1

Yes it is possible to stream upload a file using POST file uploads with cURL. This is the default and you need to provide the filename of the file(s) you would like to stream in form of strings.

// URL on which we have to post data
$url = "http://localhost/tutorials/post_action.php";
// Any other field you might want to catch
$post_data['name'] = "khan";
// File you want to upload/post
$post_data['file'] = "@c:/logs.log";

// Initialize cURL
$ch = curl_init();
// Set URL on which you want to post the Form and/or data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
// Data+Files to be posted
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_data);
// Pass TRUE or 1 if you want to wait for and catch the response against the request made
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
// For Debug mode; shows up any error encountered during the operation
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
// Execute the request
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// Just for debug: to see response
echo $response;

Apart from that default method, it is not possible to use cURL to stream upload a file using the POST method.

Answer 2

Curl has already support the stream, try curl --help | grep binary and you will get:

"--data-binary DATA HTTP POST binary data (H)"

An example: curl -v -XPOST http://example:port/path --data-binary @file.tar \ -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream"