How to Fetch JSON Data from a REST API Using PHP cURL

To fetch JSON data from a REST API using PHP and cURL, follow these steps. This guide will walk you through the process, including initializing cURL, setting options, fetching the response, and decoding JSON.

Initialization of cURL

The first step is to initialize a cURL session. This is done using the function curl_init().

Setting cURL Options

Next, set the necessary options for the cURL session. These options include the URL, return transfer, and HTTP headers.

Setting the URL

You need to specify the URL of the API endpoint you wish to interact with. Modify the $url variable to point to your specific API endpoint.

$url 'YOUR_API_ENDPOINT_URL';

Setting Return Transfer

To return the response as a string instead of outputting it directly, use the option CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER and set it to TRUE.

Setting HTTP Headers

Add the necessary headers to indicate that you are sending and expecting JSON:

Content-Type: application/json Acept: application/json

These headers are set using the curl_setopt() function.

Fecthing the Response

Use curl_exec($ch) to send the request and fetch the response.

Error Handling

Check for any cURL errors using curl_errno($ch) and handle them appropriately. If an error occurs, print the error message.

If no errors occur, decode the JSON response into a PHP array or object using the json_decode() function. The second parameter can be set to TRUE to decode the JSON into an associative array.

Decoding the JSON Response

Use json_decode($response, true) to convert the JSON string into a PHP array. If the decoding fails, check the error using json_last_error() and print the error message.

Closing the cURL Session

Finally, close the cURL session using the function curl_close($ch).

Sample Code

Below is a sample code snippet that demonstrates the complete process:

// The URL of the API endpoint
$url  'YOUR_API_ENDPOINT_URL';
// Initialize cURL session
$ch  curl_init();
// Set cURL options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    'Accept: application/json'
]);
// Fetch cURL session
$response  curl_exec($ch);
// Check for errors
if (curl_errno($ch)) {
    echo 'Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch);
} else {
    // Decode the JSON response into a PHP array
    $data  json_decode($response, true);
    // Optionally check if decoding was successful
    if (json_last_error()  JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
        // Process the data
        print_r($data); // Print the fetched data
    } else {
        echo 'JSON decoding error: ' . json_last_error_msg();
    }
}
// Close cURL session
curl_close($ch);

Additional Notes

Ensure that the cURL extension is enabled in your PHP installation. If not, you can enable it by uncommenting the line in your PHP configuration file, usually located at

Also, modify the $url variable to point to the specific API endpoint you want to access. Consider adding error handling for HTTP response codes if needed to ensure robustness in your application.

Executing this code will allow you to fetch JSON data from any REST API endpoint using PHP and cURL, making it a valuable tool for web developers and API enthusiasts.