cURL not returning JSON file

Question

I have a PHP script using cURL that I want to use to retrieve a json file from a remote server. To get to the json file/REST system you need to use authentatication. Basically, I can get it to login and store cookies. But when I try to grab the json page and echo it, it returns "Session is not found". Here is my code:

function login($url,$data) {
    $fp = fopen("cookie.txt", "w");
    fclose($fp);
    $login = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt");
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10000);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($login, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
   // ob_start();
    return curl_exec ($login);
   // ob_end_clean();
    curl_close ($login);
    //unset($login);
}

function grab_page($site){
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 40);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookie.txt");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $site);
    //ob_start();
    echo curl_exec ($ch);
    //ob_end_clean();
    curl_close ($ch);
}

// Login and retrieve the my meteor page

login('https://www.mymeteor.ie','username=username-removed9&userpass=pass-removed');
echo grab_page('https://www.mymeteor.ie/cfusion/meteor/Meteor_REST/service/prepayBalance');

Can anyone help me with this?

Answer 1

The CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR is the place where the cookie is placed after a request — stored there for later use.

When the time comes for sending a cookie along with a request, then use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE to specify which cookie to send.

Your grab_page() function will need to use this latter option, rather than (or as well as, if you need to store any cookies in the response for later) CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR.