If you need to call an external API from your WordPress theme or plugin you can use basic couple of functions.
wp_remote_get function
This function performs an HTTP get requests and returns its response, this function receives two parameters $url and $args.
string $url is the API you need to perform a request on it.
array $args is an array of the request arguments i.e. timeout, which is the time in second after it the request will be terminated.
Example of wp_remote_get
/** @var array|WP_Error $response */
$response = wp_remote_get( 'http://www.example.com/index.html' );
if ( is_array( $response ) && ! is_wp_error( $response ) ) {
$headers = $response['headers']; // array of http header lines
$body = $response['body']; // use the content
}
wp_remote_post function
This function performs HTTP post request and returns with its response, this function receives two parameters $url, $args.
Just as wp_remote_post, the $url is string of your API and $args is an array of arguments that can be passed to the request.
Example of wp_remote_post
$response = wp_remote_post( $url, array(
'method' => 'POST',
'timeout' => 45,
'redirection' => 5,
'httpversion' => '1.0',
'blocking' => true,
'headers' => array(),
'body' => array(
'username' => 'bob',
'password' => '1234xyz'
),
'cookies' => array()
)
);
if ( is_wp_error( $response ) ) {
$error_message = $response->get_error_message();
echo "Something went wrong: $error_message";
} else {
echo 'Response:<pre>';
print_r( $response );
echo '</pre>';
}
If you need to add basic authentication to your request, you can use Authorization key in headers array as follow.
$response = wp_remote_post( $url, array(
'body' => $data,
'headers' => array(
'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . base64_encode( $username . ':' . $password ),
),
) );