curl_exec

`curl_exec` is a function in PHP that is used to execute a cURL session. cURL is a library that allows you to make HTTP requests in PHP. The `curl_exec` function is used to perform the actual request and retrieve the response from the server.

When you make a request using `curl_exec`, you are essentially asking the server to send back some data. This data could be in the form of a webpage, a JSON object, or any other type of data that the server is capable of sending back.

One of the key features of `curl_exec` is that it allows you to retrieve the response from the server as a string. This means that you can easily manipulate the data that you receive and use it in your PHP code.

In order to use `curl_exec`, you first need to set up a cURL session using the `curl_init` function. This function initializes a cURL session and returns a cURL handle, which is used to set various options for the request.

Once you have set up the cURL session and configured it with the necessary options, you can then call `curl_exec` to actually perform the request. The function takes the cURL handle as its argument and returns the response from the server as a string.

It's important to note that `curl_exec` does not automatically output the response to the screen. If you want to see the response, you will need to echo or print the returned string.

Here is an example of how you might use `curl_exec` to fetch the contents of a webpage:

```php // Initialize cURL session $ch = curl_init();

// Set the URL to fetch curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://www.example.com');

// Set option to return the response as a string curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// Execute the cURL session $response = curl_exec($ch);

// Close the cURL session curl_close($ch);

// Output the response echo $response; ```

In this example, we are initializing a cURL session, setting the URL to fetch, and configuring the session to return the response as a string. We then execute the session using `curl_exec`, store the response in a variable, and finally output the response to the screen.

Overall, `curl_exec` is a powerful function that allows you to make HTTP requests in PHP and retrieve the response from the server. It is commonly used in web development to fetch data from external APIs, scrape web pages, and more.