PHP curl changes the Content-Type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Shouldn't do that

Question

I want to upload a video direct to Youtube from my server for which I am using PHP curl.

I need this request format:

POST /feeds/api/users/default/uploads HTTP/1.1
Host: uploads.gdata.youtube.com
Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN
GData-Version: 2
X-GData-Key: key=adf15ee97731bca89da876c...a8dc
Slug: video-test.mp4
Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="f93dcbA3"
Content-Length: 1941255
Connection: close

--f93dcbA3
Content-Type: application/atom+xml; charset=UTF-8

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
  xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
  xmlns:yt="http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007">
  <media:group>
    <media:title type="plain">Bad Wedding Toast</media:title>
    <media:description type="plain">
      I gave a bad toast at my friend's wedding.
    </media:description>
    <media:category
      scheme="http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat">People
    </media:category>
    <media:keywords>toast, wedding</media:keywords>
  </media:group>
</entry>
--f93dcbA3
Content-Type: video/mp4
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

<Binary File Data>
--f93dcbA3--

This is what I have:

$content = $this->buildRequestContent();

$ch = curl_init();

$curlConfig = array(
    CURLOPT_URL => 'http://uploads.gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/default/uploads',
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $content,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
        "Authorization" => sprintf("GoogleLogin auth=%s", $this->accessToken),
        "GData-Version" => 2,
        "X-GData-Key" => sprintf("key=%s", $this->developerKey),
        "Slug" => sprintf("%s", $this->video->getFilename()),
        "Content-Type" => sprintf("multipart/related; boundary=\"%s\"", $this->boundaryString),
        "Content-Length" => strlen($content),
        "Connection" => "close"
    ),
);

curl_setopt_array($ch, $curlConfig);

$result = curl_exec($ch);

Dumping the result shows me that curl changed the Content-Type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded which is of course not supported by youtube.

I put my binary content (the video) into CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, maybe this is wrong, but I don't know how to set the request body other than that.

So how do I preserve my Content-Type that I set?

According to the documentation `CURLOPT_POST` sets the `Content-Type` automatically to `application/x-www-form-urlencoded`. Try maybe setting this option and the `CURLOPT_HEADER` in single statements, or at least the latter in a single statement using `curl_setopt` *after* you've set the method. — Havelock, Apr 18 '13 at 10:08
Worked. Could you post this as an answer so I can accept it? — Johannes Klauß, Apr 19 '13 at 10:25

vbo · Answer 1 · 2013-12-13T12:46:50.227

14

Accepted answer was not helpful for me and I found another problem in your code. According to the current PHP documentation CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER must be set like this:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
    'Content-type: text/plain',
    'Content-length: 100'
));

It must be a list of strings, not a hash like array('Content-Type' => 'text/plain'). Hope it will save someone's debugging time.

edited Dec 13 '13 at 12:46

answered Dec 13 '13 at 12:25

vbo

13,583
1
25
33

2

In other words, you cannot pass an associative array to CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, only simple arrays. This issue drove me mad for hours... – andreszs Sep 03 '14 at 23:52

Havelock · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-06T08:34:55.797

8

According to the documentation section regarding the options' parameter setting the HTTP method to POST defaults to content type being set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. So my suspicion is that setting all the options at once, results in your Content-Type being overwritten.
My suggestion would be to set the content type in a single statement, after you've set the method, i.e.

$curlConfig = array(
    CURLOPT_URL => 'http://uploads.gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/default/uploads',
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $content,
);

curl_setopt_array($ch, $curlConfig);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
    'Authorization: ' . sprintf('GoogleLogin auth=%s', $this->accessToken),
    'GData-Version: 2',
    'X-GData-Key: ' . sprintf('key=%s', $this->developerKey),
    'Slug: ' . sprintf('%s', $this->video->getFilename()),
    'Content-Type: ' . sprintf('multipart/related; boundary="%s"',
                                  $this->boundaryString),
    'Content-Length: ' . strlen($content),
    'Connection: close'
));

edited May 06 '15 at 08:34

answered Apr 19 '13 at 10:46

Havelock

6,913
4
34
42

Please update your example, it's not a two dimensional array. It should be: array("Authorization: " . sprintf..., "Content-Type: " . sprintf....) – John Congdon May 05 '15 at 16:26
@JohnCongdon: correct, thanks! It's funny nobody noticed it in just over two years, three upvotes and "accepted answer". (I'm sure you meant "not an associative array" instead of "not a two dimensional array" ;) ) – Havelock May 06 '15 at 08:52
Shame for the PHP cURL. Not only `CURLOPT_POST` overrides the `Content-Type`, but prevents the other HTTP headers to be set at the same time. Thanks for that solution ! – Tom Raganowicz Jan 30 '17 at 20:22
I can't get this solution to work. I have separated the setting of the header from the rest of the options and it STILL adds the additional content-type. – dmarra May 29 '19 at 20:13
@dmarra I'd suggest to just use a dedicated client library like GuzzleHttp for instance – Havelock Jun 04 '19 at 08:37

PHP curl changes the Content-Type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Shouldn't do that

2 Answers2

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