php - how to do a post request

// How to do a POST request

// This example shows how to do a simple POST request to another webserver by using a socket connection.

function post_request($url, $data, $referer='') {

    // Convert the data array into URL Parameters like a=b&foo=bar etc.
    $data = http_build_query($data);

    // parse the given URL
    $url = parse_url($url);

    if ($url['scheme'] != 'http') {
        die('Error: Only HTTP request are supported !');
    }

    // extract host and path:
    $host = $url['host'];
    $path = $url['path'];

    // open a socket connection on port 80 - timeout: 30 sec
    $fp = fsockopen($host, 80, $errno, $errstr, 30);

    if ($fp){

        // send the request headers:
        fputs($fp, "POST $path HTTP/1.1\r\n");
        fputs($fp, "Host: $host\r\n");

        if ($referer != '')
            fputs($fp, "Referer: $referer\r\n");

        fputs($fp, "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n");
        fputs($fp, "Content-length: ". strlen($data) ."\r\n");
        fputs($fp, "Connection: close\r\n\r\n");
        fputs($fp, $data);

        $result = '';
        while(!feof($fp)) {
            // receive the results of the request
            $result .= fgets($fp, 128);
        }
    }
    else {
        return array(
            'status' => 'err',
            'error' => "$errstr ($errno)"
        );
    }

    // close the socket connection:
    fclose($fp);

    // split the result header from the content
    $result = explode("\r\n\r\n", $result, 2);

    $header = isset($result[0]) ? $result[0] : '';
    $content =