How to use cURL to Get JSON Data and Decode JSON Data in PHP ? (original) (raw)
Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025
In this article, we are going to see how to use cURL to Get JSON data and Decode JSON data in PHP.
**cURL****:**
- It stands for Client URL.
- It is a command line tool for sending and getting files using URL syntax.
- cURL allows communicating with other servers using HTTP, FTP, Telnet, and more.
**Approach:
- We are going to fetch JSON data from one of free website, which gives JSON data for testing i.e. reqres.in
- First, we initialize curl using curl_init() method.
- Sending GET request to reqres.in server using curl_setopt() method with CURLOPT_URL to get json data.
- After that, we have to tell curl to store json data in a variable instead of dumping on screen. This is done by using CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER parameter in curl_setopt() function.
- Execute curl using curl_exec() method.
- At last, close the curl using curl_close() method.
**Example:
PHP `
response=curlexec(response = curl_exec(response=curlexec(curl); // Checking if any error occurs // during request or not if($e = curl_error($curl)) { echo $e; } else { // Decoding JSON data $decodedData = json_decode($response, true); // Outputting JSON data in // Decoded form var_dump($decodedData); } // Closing curl curl_close($curl); ?>`
**Output: