How to structure JSON to be sent over PHP's cURL - json

Question

I have an api which works fine when I use POSTMAN, but now that I am trying to send it with PHP I am getting an API error message in response.
Format Error: The exception message is 'The incoming message has an unexpected message format 'Raw'
Which I am sure is related to my data structure. can someone tell me where I am going wrong?
Header
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
JSON Body
{
"accessID": "ASASD22",
"password": "DASD2DQA",
"messages": [
{
"DestinationID": "22D2D2D22D",
"UserMessageID": 133,
"RawPayload": [1,31, 34, 43]
}
]
}
Here is the PHP code I wrote, but returns an error code; can you guys see any issues?
$headers= array('Connection: Keep-Alive','Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8','Connection: Keep-Alive');
$data = array(
"accessID" => "ASASD22",
"password" => "DASD2DQA",
"messages" => array(
"DestinationID" => "22D2D2D22D",
"UserMessageID" => "133",
"RawPayload" => "[1,31, 34, 43]"
)
);
$url_send ="http://api.SITE.com/RST-MESSAGE.svc/submit.json/";
$str_data = json_encode($data);
function sendPostData($url, $post){
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$post);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
echo " " . sendPostData($url_send, $str_data);

Answer 1

It's difficult to guess, you should check the API's documentation.
But, if the data posted as "JSON Body" is the request you send when it works then you should replicate it exactly in PHP (which you don't):
$data = array(
"accessID" => "ASASD22",
"password" => "DASD2DQA",
"messages" => array(
array(
"DestinationID" => "22D2D2D22D",
"UserMessageID" => "133",
"RawPayload" => array(1, 31, 34, 43),
),
)
);
I did two changes to your data structure. See below the pieces of JSON body that ask for changes in the structure of $data:
"messages": [ { ... } ] - messages is an array of objects, not a single object;
"RawPayload": [1, 31, 34, 43] - RawPayload is an array of integers, not a string;

Answer 2

I found a way to correctly send the entire JSON with in the PHP cURL function
<?php
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://api.SITE.com/Messages.svc/submit.json/" );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, '{
"accessID": "ASASD22",
"password": "DASD2DQA",
"messages": [
{
"DestinationID": "22D2D2D22D",
"UserMessageID": 133,
"RawPayload": [1,31, 34, 43]
}
]
}' );
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Accept: application/json','Content-Type: application/json'));
$result=curl_exec ($ch);
echo $result;
?>
so basically I wrapped the entire JSON into curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data) and send it that way!