What are common pitfalls when using cURL to send POST data in PHP?

Common pitfalls when using cURL to send POST data in PHP include not setting the CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS option correctly, not setting the CURLOPT_POST option to true, and not including the appropriate headers. To solve these issues, make sure to properly format the data to be sent, set CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS with the formatted data, set CURLOPT_POST to true, and include headers such as Content-Type.

// Initialize cURL session
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the URL to which data will be sent
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://example.com/api');

// Set the request method to POST
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);

// Set the POST data to be sent
$postData = array('key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($postData));

// Set the appropriate headers
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'));

// Execute the cURL session
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// Close the cURL session
curl_close($ch);

// Handle the response
echo $response;