PHP create User in moodle via Webservice

Question

I want so connect an external website with a moodle-system. I've already set up the webService and created a token to get access.

I've followed http://www.rumours.co.nz/manuals/using_moodle_web_services.htm set up but in contrast i wanted to realise the connection via REST as in https://github.com/moodlehq/sample-ws-clients/find/master

My approach is to have a moodle class which will handle the data exchange. In first place i just wanted to try to create some new hard coded Users via the webService but it fails with the Moodle-Response:

"invalidrecord Can not find data record in database table external_functions. "

Which seems to me as if i the call was successfully but moodle has a problem to find the "core_user_create_users" function. I've checked the local moodle Database and in the table external_functions is an entry for "core_user_create_users" so i'm kind of confused where moodle doesn't know what to do.

Thats my class:

require_once (DOCUMENT_ROOT.'/tcm/api/moodle/curl.php');

class Moodle {

    private $token;          
    private $domainName;     // 'local.moodle.dev';
    private $serverUrl;

    public function __construct($token, $domainName) {
        $this->token = $token;
        $this->domainName = $domainName;
        $this->serverUrl = $this->domainName . '/webservice/rest/server.php' . '?wstoken=' . $this->token;

        echo "initialize Service: $this->serverUrl </br>";
    }


    public function createUser() {
        $functionName = 'core_user_create_users';

        /// PARAMETERS - NEED TO BE CHANGED IF YOU CALL A DIFFERENT FUNCTION
        $user1 = new stdClass();
        $user1->username = 'testusername1';
        $user1->password = 'testpassword1';
        $user1->firstname = 'testfirstname1';
        $user1->lastname = 'testlastname1';
        $user1->email = 'testemail1@moodle.com';
        $user1->auth = 'manual';
        $user1->idnumber = 'testidnumber1';
        $user1->lang = 'en';
        $user1->theme = 'standard';
        $user1->timezone = '-12.5';
        $user1->mailformat = 0;
        $user1->description = 'Hello World!';
        $user1->city = 'testcity1';
        $user1->country = 'au';
        $preferencename1 = 'preference1';
        $preferencename2 = 'preference2';
        $user1->preferences = array(
        array('type' => $preferencename1, 'value' => 'preferencevalue1'),
        array('type' => $preferencename2, 'value' => 'preferencevalue2'));
        $user2 = new stdClass();
        $user2->username = 'testusername2';
        $user2->password = 'testpassword2';
        $user2->firstname = 'testfirstname2';
        $user2->lastname = 'testlastname2';
        $user2->email = 'testemail2@moodle.com';
        $user2->timezone = 'Pacific/Port_Moresby';
        $users = array($user1, $user2);
        $params = array('users' => $users);

        /// REST CALL
        $serverurl = $this->serverUrl .  '&wsfunction=' . $functionName;
        require_once (DOCUMENT_ROOT.'/tcm/api/moodle/curl.php');
        $curl = new curl;
        //if rest format == 'xml', then we do not add the param for   backward compatibility with Moodle < 2.2
        $restformat = "json";
        $resp = $curl->post($serverurl . $restformat, $params);
        //print_r($resp);

        echo '</br>*************Server Response*************</br>';
        var_dump($resp);
   }

}

I'm using the curl class from the same github-project which i posted above - moodle is linkng to it in their Documentation.. docs.moodle.org/dev/Creating_a_web_service_client

The entry point of my call is hardcoded right now:

<?php

include_once (DOCUMENT_ROOT.'/tcm/api/moodle/moodle.php');
//entry point of code

if (isset($_POST)){
    //token and domain would be in $_POST
    $bla = new Moodle('0b5a1e98061c5f7fb70fc3b42af6bfc4', 'local.moodle.dev');
    $bla->createUser();
}

Does anyone know how to solve the "invalidrecord Can not find data record in database table external_functions" error or has a different approach/suggestion how i can create my users remotely??

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I got it finally working with the following code:

class Moodle {

    private $token;          //'0b5a1e98061c5f7fb70fc3b42af6bfc4';
    private $domainName;     // 'http://local.moodle.dev';
    private $serverUrl;
    public $error;

    public function __construct($token, $domainName) {
        $this->token = $token;
        $this->domainName = $domainName;

        $this->serverUrl = $this->domainName . '/webservice/rest/server.php' . '?wstoken=' . $this->token;

        echo "initialize Service: $this->serverUrl </br>";
    }

    public function createUser() {
        $functionName = 'core_user_create_users';

        $user1 = new stdClass();
        $user1->username = 'testusername1';
        $user1->password = 'Uk3@0d5w';
        $user1->firstname = 'testfirstname1';
        $user1->lastname = 'testlastname1';
        $user1->email = 'testemail1@moodle.com';
        $user1->auth = 'manual';
        $user1->idnumber = '';
        $user1->lang = 'en';
        $user1->timezone = 'Australia/Sydney';
        $user1->mailformat = 0;
        $user1->description = '';
        $user1->city = '';
        $user1->country = 'AU';     //list of abrevations is in yourmoodle/lang/en/countries
        $preferencename1 = 'auth_forcepasswordchange';
        $user1->preferences = array(
            array('type' => $preferencename1, 'value' => 'true')
            );

        $users = array($user1);
        $params = array('users' => $users);

        /// REST CALL
        $restformat = "json";
        $serverurl = $this->serverUrl . '&wsfunction=' . $functionName. '&moodlewsrestformat=' . $restformat;
        require_once (DOCUMENT_ROOT . '/tcm/api/moodle/curl.php');
        $curl = new curl();


        $resp = $curl->post($serverurl, $params);


        echo '</br>************************** Server Response    createUser()**************************</br></br>';
        echo $serverurl . '</br></br>';

        var_dump($resp);
    }
}

Info:

For all moodle beginners.. Activating the moodle Debug messages helps a bit. You'll receive an additional error information in the response returned form the server.

Moodle -> Site Administration -> Development -> Debugging -> Debug Messages

Select: DEVELOPER:extra Moodle debug messages for developers