PHP Warning caused by \WP_Http::request, when body contains a JSON string

[sciamannikoo]

This is happening with WP 4.6-beta3-38061.

Scenario:

A plugin needs to send requests to an external service, which is expecting to receive a JSON string in the request body.

<?php
$url = 'http://domain.tld/jobs.json?project_id=1234&accesskey=e2e65819764d93d94624b9e58ea931ea&state=any';

$context = array (
  'method' => 'GET',
  'body' => '{"project_id":1234,"accesskey":"e2e65819764d93d94624b9e58ea931ea","state":"any","api_version":1.1}',
  'sslverify' => false,
  'timeout' => 60,
  'headers' => 'Content-type: application/json',
);

Calling \WP_Http::request( $url, $context ) throws this warning:

PHP Warning:  http_build_query(): Parameter 1 expected to be Array or Object.  Incorrect value given in /.../wp-includes/Requests/Transport/cURL.php on line 505

The point is that \WP_Http::request set the "body" element (which in this case, again, is a JSON string) in $data.

Then \Requests::request (which expect $data to be either an array or null) is called.

However, \Requests_Transport_cURL::request (which is called by \Requests::request) expect $data to be either a string or an array.

Is worth noting that this issue does not happen with WP 4.5 and earlier versions.

Please let me know if you need more details.

[ocean90]

This seems to depend on the data_format option which is set ​here and used in cURL ​here.

@sciamannikoo: I'm actually not sure why body is set in your GET example, shouldn't this be a POST request?

@rmccue: Any thoughts on the different types? Looks like ​https://github.com/rmccue/Requests/blob/ae16e797f7dcc4439e540939d5bb31f920e5e87f/library/Requests.php#L557 supports a string too.

[sciamannikoo]

@ocean90 you nailed it!

This comes from some legacy code.

Apparently, the developer was too lazy to remove the "body" when the request type was using the GET method.

Removing it seems to have fixed the issue.

[rmccue]

GET doesn't support request bodies; technically speaking, clients, proxies, and servers are free to pretend it doesn't exist. It'd be nice if Requests didn't trigger a warning, but the usage is incorrect here.

We should probably sanity-check the value in Requests. Closing the ticket out here as it's not a WP thing, but rather something inside Requests itself.

[ocean90]

#37618 was marked as a duplicate.

[ocean90]

Replying to rmccue:

[…] It'd be nice if Requests didn't trigger a warning, but the usage is incorrect here.

We should probably sanity-check the value in Requests. Closing the ticket out here as it's not a WP thing, but rather something inside Requests itself.

See ​https://github.com/rmccue/Requests/issues/228.

[johnbillion]

#39043 was marked as a duplicate.