CURL是最简单的方法。这里有一个简单的调用

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "THE URL TO THE SERVICE");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, POST DATA);
$result = curl_exec($ch);


print_r($result);
curl_close($ch);

您可以使用file_get_contents来发出任何http POST/PUT/DELETE/OPTIONS/HEAD方法，除了函数名所示的GET方法之外。

如何在PHP中使用file_get_contents发布数据?

如果您正在使用Symfony，有一个很棒的rest客户端包，它甚至包含了所有~100个异常，并抛出它们，而不是返回一些毫无意义的错误代码+消息。

你真的应该检查一下: https://github.com/CircleOfNice/CiRestClientBundle

我喜欢它的界面:

try {
    $restClient = new RestClient();
    $response   = $restClient->get('http://www.someUrl.com');
    $statusCode = $response->getStatusCode();
    $content    = $response->getContent();
} catch(OperationTimedOutException $e) {
    // do something
}

适用于所有http方法。

正如@Christoph Winkler提到的，这是实现它的基类:

curl_helper.php

// This class has all the necessary code for making API calls thru curl library

class CurlHelper {

// This method will perform an action/method thru HTTP/API calls
// Parameter description:
// Method= POST, PUT, GET etc
// Data= array("param" => "value") ==> index.php?param=value
public static function perform_http_request($method, $url, $data = false)
{
    $curl = curl_init();

    switch ($method)
    {
        case "POST":
            curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

            if ($data)
                curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
            break;
        case "PUT":
            curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PUT, 1);
            break;
        default:
            if ($data)
                $url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, http_build_query($data));
    }

    // Optional Authentication:
    //curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC);
    //curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "username:password");

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    $result = curl_exec($curl);

    curl_close($curl);

    return $result;
}

}

然后你就可以包含这个文件并使用它，例如:any.php

    require_once("curl_helper.php");
    ...
    $action = "GET";
    $url = "api.server.com/model"
    echo "Trying to reach ...";
    echo $url;
    $parameters = array("param" => "value");
    $result = CurlHelper::perform_http_request($action, $url, $parameters);
    echo print_r($result)

如果你有一个url并且你的php支持它，你可以调用file_get_contents:

$response = file_get_contents('http://example.com/path/to/api/call?param1=5');

如果$response是JSON，使用json_decode将其转换为php数组:

$response = json_decode($response);

如果$response是XML，使用simple_xml类:

$response = new SimpleXMLElement($response);

http://sg2.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples-basic.php

如果你愿意使用第三方工具，你可以看看这个: https://github.com/CircleOfNice/DoctrineRestDriver

这是一种使用api的全新方式。

首先，你定义了一个实体，它定义了传入和输出数据的结构，并用数据源注释它:

/*
 * @Entity
 * @DataSource\Select("http://www.myApi.com/products/{id}")
 * @DataSource\Insert("http://www.myApi.com/products")
 * @DataSource\Select("http://www.myApi.com/products/update/{id}")
 * @DataSource\Fetch("http://www.myApi.com/products")
 * @DataSource\Delete("http://www.myApi.com/products/delete/{id}")
 */
class Product {
    private $name;

    public function setName($name) {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

现在，与REST API进行通信非常容易:

$product = new Product();
$product->setName('test');
// sends an API request POST http://www.myApi.com/products ...
$em->persist($product);
$em->flush();

$product->setName('newName');
// sends an API request UPDATE http://www.myApi.com/products/update/1 ...
$em->flush();