HTTP Post to a web service using VBA with curl php example

Question

I am setting up a POST function using vba that will post text message information to our client as we get it. I work in a call center, so once the call has ending I need to post the data to our client who will automatically send out a text message.

I received an example API from our client written in PHP that uses Curl. I am trying to convert this into vba.

Heres the php code:

`public function SendSingleSMS($user, $pass, $mobile, $originator, $innerMessage,                                 $messageType) 
    {      
        //Send Data
        $fields = array
        (
            'user' => $user,
            'pass' => $pass,
            'func' => 8,
            'mobile' => $mobile,
            'orig' => $originator,
            'msg' => urlencode($innerMessage),
            'msgType' => $messageType
        );

        $response = $this->sendUsingCURL($this->apiURL, $fields);
        return $response;
    }

    //Send information
    private function sendUsingCURL($url, $fields)
    {
        //url-ify the data for the POST
        foreach($fields as $key=>$value) 
            $fields_string .= $key.'='.$value.'&';

        rtrim($fields_string, '&');

        //open connection
        $ch = curl_init();

        //WARNING: this would prevent curl from detecting a 'man in the middle' attack
        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
        curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);

        //set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST, count($fields));
        curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fields_string);

        //execute post
        $response = curl_exec($ch);
        $err = curl_error($ch);

        curl_close($ch);

        if($response === false)
            throw new Exception(__CLASS__."::".__FUNCTION__."_".$err);

        return $response;
    }
}`

I have tried everything and done every search. I cant seem to make vba post to this service without an error.

The vba code:

    Dim oHttp As Object
Dim strServer, strUsername, strPassword, strMessage, strMobileNumber, strData  As String
Set oHttp = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")

'-- get message paramaters from screen fields
strUsername = "user"
strPassword = "pass"
strfunc = "8"
strmobile = "0773432111"
strorig = "71111"
strmsg = "HelloWorld"
strmsgtype = "4"
'-- build the HTTP POST dataset
strData = "&user=" + strUsername + "&pass=" + strPassword + "&func=" + strfunc + "&mobile=" + strmobile + "&orig=" + strorig + "&msg=" + strmsg + "&msgType=" + strmsgtype

'-- prepare the HTTP POST message
oHttp.Open "POST", "http://test.com/API/Link.php", False
oHttp.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
oHttp.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
oHttp.setRequestHeader "Accept", "*/*"
oHttp.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", CStr(Len(strData))
oHttp.setRequestHeader "Connection", "close"

'-- send the message
oHttp.send (strData)
        Text0 = strData
'-- get the response
MsgBox (oHttp.responseText)

Is there a way I can get VBA to post data similar to the curl post? Everything I've tried give me wrong login info, or the error:

"Incompatible characters found in message. Please only use GSM compatible characters (Non-standard apostrophes and dashes are commonly to blame)"

Answer 1

I was having similar issues POSTing data to webservices and ended up turning my results into a library: (shameless plug) https://github.com/VBA-tools/VBA-Web . Although it uses JSON primarily, it may be helpful.

Without looking at the API, I would say the leading "&" may be causing an issue and in my experience you don't need to set those headers explicitly. To get an idea of the request that Excel is sending, you can try Fiddler , which captures request details.

Update:

Just pushed an update to VBA-Web that should help, using the following example:

Dim Client As New WebClient
Client.BaseUrl = "http://test.com/API/"

Dim Request As New WebRequest
Request.Resource = "Link.php"
Request.Method = WebMethod.HttpPost
Request.Format = WebFormat.FormUrlEncoded

Request.AddBodyParameter "user", strUsername
Request.AddBodyParameter "pass", strPassword
Request.AddBodyParameter "func", strfunc
Request.AddBodyParameter "mobile", strmobile
Request.AddBodyParameter "orig", strorig
Request.AddBodyParameter "msg", strmsg
Request.AddBodyParameter "msgType", strmsgtype

Dim Response As WebResponse
Set Response = Client.Execute(Request)
MsgBox Response.Content