HTTP Clients

To make an HTTP client you should try to avoid using PHP libraries such as Curl directly. There are many open source HTTP client libraries that make the job of integrating with HTTP services much easier. Rhubarb includes a similar library simply called HttpClient.

HttpClient is an abstract base class that implements the provider pattern. It has one method getResponse(HttpRequest $request) that is supplied by concrete types.

This approach allows the HTTP client to be swapped with one using a different library or for unit testing a mock client that can extend the reach of testing with Rhubarb REST APIs.

The default HTTP client is the CurlHttpClient which as the name suggests uses the Curl library to make its requests.

As a provider you can call the setProviderClassName() function to set the required provider for your application:

HttpClient::setProviderClassName(GuzzleHttpClient::class);

To make a request create a HttpRequest object, get the client and call getResponse:

$myObject = [1, 2, 3];
$request = new HttpRequest('http://api.myservice.com/', 'put', json_encode($myObject));