Updating subscribers in a list using cURL and Mailchimp API v3

Question

I have this code below that adds a user to a pre-existing list in Mailchimp.

$apikey = '<api_key>';
        $auth = base64_encode( 'user:'.$apikey );

        $data = array(
            'apikey'        => $apikey,
            'email_address' => $email,
            'status'        => 'subscribed',
            'merge_fields'  => array(
                'FNAME' => $name
            )
        );
        $json_data = json_encode($data);

        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/lists/<list_id>/members/');
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json',
                                                    'Authorization: Basic '.$auth));
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'PHP-MCAPI/2.0');
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $json_data);                                                                                                                  

        $result = curl_exec($ch);

        var_dump($result);
        die('Mailchimp executed');

This code only adds users to the list and when I try add the details of the same user twice it throws the following error on the second attempt:

[email protected] is already a list member. Use PATCH to update existing members.

How do I go about using PATCH to update user details? I'm not sure where to specify it.

Solution 1

I figured out where I'm going wrong. When the user is initially added to the list the response provides an ID. I need to store the ID in my database with those person's details and reference the ID in the url I'm making a call to when I want to update the user's details in the Mailchimp List.

https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/lists/<list_id_goes_here>/members/<members_id_goes_here>

Thanks @TooMuchPete for the correct curl command.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "PATCH");

Solution 2

You're looking for the CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST option in cURL.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "PATCH");

But, since this is now your second question in as many days asking how to use built-in cURL library, it might be worth using something a little better. If you're on PHP 5.4 or better, I recommend Guzzle. PHP Requests is also very good, though, and works with PHP 5.3.

Comments

[VenomRush]

This doesn't seem to work. I get the following error: "type" : "kb.mailchimp.com/api/error-docs/405-method-not-allowed", "title" : "Method Not Allowed","status":405,"detail":"The requested method and resource are not compatible. See the Allow header for this resource's available methods." The link on the page of the provided url leads to a 403 page which doesn't help me much.

[VenomRush]

Also, thanks for those suggestions. I'll keep them in mind for future projects. The framework this website was developed in is pretty old and I think I'd spend more time figuring out how to integrate Guzzle than it's worth.

[VenomRush]

Comment fail, the url in my original comment is kb.mailchimp.com/api/error-docs/405-method-not-allowed

[TooMuchPete]

Do note that the "subscriber ID" is really just the MD5 hash of their email address.

[VenomRush]

Good to know. Thanks.

[Bjørn Børresen]

For anyone else looking at how to update the email of an existing subscriber - you can't do that (you need to DELETE the old email and then add the new one as a new subscriber). You cannot change information marked as "readonly" in the schema here: us9.api.mailchimp.com/schema/3.0/Lists/Members/Instance.json

[BadHorsie]

Also note the subscriber ID is the lower case email address hashed with MD5. In PHP this means you must do md5(strtolower($email)). Here is the MailChimp documentation link on this.

[mickmackusa]

Did you notice that you set PUT then overwrote with PATCH before executing? Bad copy-paste?

[mickmackusa]

Did you need to check my linkedin before deciding to respond?