PHP Communication & Stakeholder Relations 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which PHP extension provides the most common way to make HTTP requests to external APIs?
- soap
- curl (Correct answer)
- ftp
- xmlrpc
Correct answer: curl
The cURL extension is the most widely used PHP tool for making HTTP requests to external services and APIs.
Question 2: What is the correct way to set a custom HTTP response header for an API endpoint in PHP?
- echo 'Content-Type: application/json';
- header('Content-Type: application/json'); (Correct answer)
- response()->header('Content-Type', 'application/json');
- set_header('Content-Type', 'application/json');
Correct answer: header('Content-Type: application/json');
header() is the native PHP function for sending HTTP response headers before any output is flushed.
Question 3: In PHP's $_SERVER superglobal, which key holds the HTTP request method (GET, POST, etc.)?
- $_SERVER['METHOD']
- $_SERVER['HTTP_METHOD']
- $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] (Correct answer)
- $_SERVER['REQUEST_TYPE']
Correct answer: $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']
$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] contains the HTTP method used for the current request.
Question 4: Which PHP function reads the raw body of an incoming HTTP request, useful for JSON API payloads?
- file_get_contents('php://input') (Correct answer)
- getallheaders()
- fread(STDIN, 4096)
- ob_get_contents()
Correct answer: file_get_contents('php://input')
file_get_contents('php://input') reads the raw POST body, which is necessary to parse JSON payloads sent to an API.
Question 5: What does CORS stand for in the context of PHP web APIs communicating with browsers?
- Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (Correct answer)
- Client-Origin Request Security
- Cross-Object Request Schema
- Client-Origin Response Spec
Correct answer: Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) is a browser security mechanism that PHP APIs handle via specific response headers.
Question 6: Which PHP function is used to redirect a user's browser to another URL?
- redirect()
- forward()
- header('Location: ...') (Correct answer)
- goto()
Correct answer: header('Location: ...')
header('Location: url') sends an HTTP redirect header; it must be followed by exit() to stop further execution.
Question 7: What PHP configuration directive controls the maximum size of POST data that can be received?
- upload_max_filesize
- post_max_size (Correct answer)
- max_post_data
- memory_limit
Correct answer: post_max_size
post_max_size in php.ini sets the maximum size of POST data allowed, affecting form submissions and API payloads.
PHP Communication & Stakeholder Relations 3
Which PHP extension provides the most common way to make HTTP requests to external APIs?