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Effectively managing cURL GET requests in CodeIgniter 4 allows developers to retrieve data via the HTTP GET method from various sources, including APIs and external endpoints.

CodeIgniter 4, renowned for its simplicity and versatility, provides seamless integration with cURL, facilitating effortless interactions with external resources.

In this tutorial, we’ll see the process of working with cURL GET requests in CodeIgniter 4. GET requests serve as a fundamental method for fetching data, and understanding how to handle GET requests.

Let’s get started.

CodeIgniter 4 Installation

To create a CodeIgniter 4 setup run this given command into your shell or terminal. Please make sure composer should be installed.

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter codeigniter-4

Assuming you have successfully installed application into your local system.

Environment (.env) Setup

When we install CodeIgniter 4, we will have env file at root. To use the environment variables means using variables at global scope we need to do env to .env

Either we can do via renaming file as simple as that. Also we can do by terminal command.

Open project in terminal

cp env .env

Above command will create a copy of env file to .env file. Now we are ready to use environment variables.

Enable Development Mode

CodeIgniter starts up in production mode by default. You need to make it in development mode to see any error if you are working with application.

Open .env file from root.

# CI_ENVIRONMENT = production

 // Do it to 
 
CI_ENVIRONMENT = development

Now application is in development mode.

What is CURLRequest Class?

The CURLRequest class in CodeIgniter 4 is a lightweight HTTP client based CURL that allows us to communicate to other websites and web servers. It can be used to get the contents of a webpage, retrieve image, or communicate with an API, many other things.

Load CURLRequest in Application

The library can be loaded either manually or through the Services class.

$curl = \Config\Services::curlrequest();

OR 

$curl = service('curlrequest');

Create Controller (cURL GET Request)

Back to project terminal and run this command to create a controller file.

php spark make:controller Data --suffix

Above command will create a file i.e DataController.php inside /app/Controllers folder.

Open DataController.php and write this code into it.

<?php

namespace App\Controllers;

use App\Controllers\BaseController;

class DataController extends BaseController
{
	public function index()
	{
		$curl = service('curlrequest');

		$posts_data = $curl->request("GET", "https://api.onlinewebtutorblog.com/employees", [
			"headers" => [
				"Accept" => "application/json"
			]
		]);

		echo "<pre>";
		print_r($posts_data->getBody());
    }
}

Create Route

Open Routes.php file from /app/Config folder. Add this route into it.

//...

$routes->get("employees", "DataController::index");

//...

Application Testing

Open project terminal and start development server via command:

php spark serve

To list all API data

URL: http://localhost:8080/employees

That’s it.

We hope this article helped you to learn Codeigniter 4 cURL GET Request Example Tutorial in a very detailed way.

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