Build a Simple REST API in PHP (GET + POST)

Let’s build a small API endpoint in PHP that returns and creates posts.

Goal endpoints

- GET /api/posts - POST /api/posts

Step 1: Simple router using REQUEST_METHOD

File: `api.php`

```php <?php require_once "config.php"; header('Content-Type: application/json');

$method = $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];

if ($method === 'GET') { $rows = $pdo->query("SELECT id, title, body FROM posts ORDER BY id DESC")->fetchAll(); echo json_encode($rows); exit; }

if ($method === 'POST') { $input = json_decode(file_get_contents("php://input"), true); $title = trim($input['title'] ?? ''); $body = trim($input['body'] ?? '');

if ($title === '' || $body === '') { http_response_code(400); echo json_encode(["error" => "title and body are required"]); exit; }

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO posts (title, body) VALUES (:title, :body)"); $stmt->execute(["title" => $title, "body" => $body]);

echo json_encode(["status" => "created"]); exit; }

http_response_code(405); echo json_encode(["error" => "Method not allowed"]); ?> ```

Why we used php://input

When clients send JSON, it does not appear in $_POST. You read raw body and decode it.

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