Why is it important to set the Content-Type header before other headers in a cURL request in PHP?

Setting the Content-Type header before other headers in a cURL request in PHP is important because it specifies the format of the data being sent in the request body. This allows the server to properly interpret the data and process it accordingly. If the Content-Type header is not set before other headers, the server may not be able to correctly handle the request data.

$ch = curl_init();
$url = 'https://example.com/api';
$data = json_encode(['key' => 'value']);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    'Authorization: Bearer token'
]);

$response = curl_exec($ch);

if ($response === false) {
    echo 'cURL error: ' . curl_error($ch);
}

curl_close($ch);