Connecting to an ODS / API Using PHP

The API surface of an Ed-Fi ODS / API is platform neutral, meaning that client systems can be written in a variety of languages.

The API Client Developers' Guide documentation has examples using Java and C# libraries. However, scripting languages such as Ruby or PHP can also be used. The following code snippet provides a simple example in PHP showing authentication followed by a GET to populate a simple list of Student entities.

PHP Script Example

 <html>
	<head>
 		<title>PHP Test</title>
 	</head>
 <body>
 
 <?php 
 
 // TODO: Replace URL, Client ID, and Client Secret with your values
 $edfiBaseUrl = "https://api.ed-fi.org/api"; // NOTE: No trailing slash!
 $edfiClientId = "RvcohKz9zHI4";
 $edfiClientSecret = "E1iEFusaNf81xzCxwHfbolkC";
 
 function getAuthCode($edfiBaseUrl, $edfiClientId){
  
 	$edfiApiCodeUrl = "$edfiBaseUrl/oauth/authorize"; 
 	$data = "Client_id=$edfiClientId&Response_type=code";
 	$urlWithData = "$edfiApiCodeUrl?$data";
 
 	$curl = curl_init();
  
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $edfiApiCodeUrl);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
 
	// Receive server response.
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); 
   
 	$result = curl_exec($curl);
 
 	$jsonResult = json_decode($result);
 
 	curl_close($curl);
 
 	return $jsonResult->code;
 } 
 
 function getAuthToken($edfiBaseUrl,$edfiClientId,$edfiClientSecret,$authCode){
  
 	$edfiApiTokenUrl = "$edfiBaseUrl/oauth/token";
 	$paramsToPost = "Client_id=$edfiClientId&Client_secret=$edfiClientSecret&Code=$authCode&Grant_type=authorization_code";
  
 	$curl = curl_init();
  
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "$edfiApiTokenUrl");
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $paramsToPost);
 
 	// Receive server response
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); 
   
 	$result = curl_exec($curl);
 
 	$jsonResult = json_decode($result);
 
 	curl_close($curl);
 
 	return $jsonResult->access_token;
 }
 
 function edfiApiAuthenticate($edfiBaseUrl,$edfiClientId,$edfiClientSecret,$authCode){
 	$authCode = getAuthCode($edfiBaseUrl, $edfiClientId);
 	$accessToken = getAuthToken($edfiBaseUrl,$edfiClientId,$edfiClientSecret,$authCode);
 	return $accessToken;
 }
 
 function edfiApiGet($token,$edfiResourceUrl,$data){
  
 	$authorization = "Authorization: Bearer $token";
 
 	$curl = curl_init();
  
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json' , $authorization ));
 	curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "$edfiResourceUrl?$data");
 	
	// Receive server response
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); 
   
 	$result = curl_exec($curl);
 
 	$jsonResult = json_decode($result);
 
 	curl_close($curl);
 
 	return $jsonResult;
 }
 ?> 
 
 <?php 
 $accessToken = edfiApiAuthenticate($edfiBaseUrl,$edfiClientId,$edfiClientSecret,$authCode);
 echo "<p>token: $accessToken</p>";
 
 //$jsonStudents = edfiApiGet($accessToken,"https://api.ed-fi.org/api/api/v2.0/2017/students","");
 $jsonStudents = edfiApiGet($accessToken,"https://api.ed-fi.org/api/api/v2.0/2017/students","limit=10");
 ?>
 
 <table>
 	<thead>
    	<tr>
      		<th>FirstName</th>
      		<th>Middle</th>
      		<th>Last</th>
    	</tr>
  	</thead>
  	<tbody>
	<?php 
 	foreach ($jsonStudents as $student => $s) {
            // Output a row
            $row = "<tr>";
   			$row .= "<td>$s->firstName</td>";
   			$row .= "<td>$s->middleName</td>";
   			$row .= "<td>$s->lastSurname</td>";
   			$row .= "</tr>";
   			echo $row;
        	}?>
  	</tbody>
</table>
<hr>
<?php echo json_encode($jsonStudents); ?>

Thanks to Double Line Partners for the contribution of this material.