Processing POST variable in PHP REST service

[loamguy1]

I'm testing my new PHP REST web service via localhost (http://localhost/myservice.php). It should accept both GET(retrieve info for one user) and POST requests(updates one user's preferences) via jQuery AJAX.

Testing the GET functionality in the service is working great. I'm passing in a JSON structure and passing another back.

However, I'm having trouble with the same service processing a POST request. It should accept JSON as the input. The code is correctly recognizing the request was a POST, not a GET, but the actual $_POST array is empty.

I tried two different REST clients to test my service - POSTMAN and cREST. Both apps give me the same empty POST array. For testing I'm just outputing the POST array in the REST service which shows:

Array
(
)

One interesting tidbit: For debugging, I displayed 'php://input' which showed the POST variables were passed, but the actual $_POST array is empty.

Has anyone had this problem before? I checked out several REST tutorials online, and haven't been able to find out any information on this issue.

Any ideas welcome of course...

[loamguy1]

Eventually found the solution to this:

If you use JSON in a POST to a REST service, the JSON object is not treated as a valid query string. So, the POST array will exist, but it will be empty.

Here is the work-around:

$post_vars = file_get_contents('php://input');

// Second parm TRUE, decodes into associative array
$data = json_decode($post_vars, TRUE);