README

Contents

• Introduction
• TLDR
• Requirements
  • Getting an OMDb API Key
• Installation
• Usage
• Methods Overview
  • byIdOrTitle()
  • search()
  • poster()
• Error Handling
• Local Development
• Contributing

Introduction

Zerotoprod\OmdbApi is a PHP cURL wrapper for the OMDb API. It allows you to search for movies, series, and other media, retrieve detailed information using IMDb IDs or titles, and fetch poster images.

TLDR

use Zerotoprod\OmdbApi\OmdbApi;

$OmdbApi = new OmdbApi('apiKey');

// Find a title by ImdbID (Internet Movie DataBase ID) or title
$OmdbApi->byIdOrTitle('Avatar')['Title']; // 2009

// Find multiple titles
$OmdbApi->search('Avatar')['Search'][0]['Year']; // 2009

// Get the poster art of a title by its ImdbID
$OmdbApi->poster('tt0499549'); // https://img.omdbapi.com/?apikey=8f8423aa&i=tt0499549

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher.
• cURL extension enabled (typically enabled by default in most PHP installations).
• A valid OMDb API key. A free key is typically available.

Getting an OMDb API Key

1. Go to the OMDb API website.
2. Sign up for a free or paid plan depending on your usage requirements.
3. After registering, you will receive an API Key that you must pass to the OmdbApi class during initialization.

Installation

Install Zerotoprod\OmdbApi via Composer:

composer require zero-to-prod/omdb-api

This will add the package to your project’s dependencies and create an autoloader entry for it.

Usage

Initialization

use Zerotoprod\OmdbApi\OmdbApi;

$OmdbApi = new OmdbApi('apiKey');

You can also customize the base URL and the poster URL if you need to (for example, to proxy through another service):

$OmdbApi = new OmdbApi(
    apikey: 'your-omdb-api-key',
    base_url: 'https://www.omdbapi.com/',
    img_url: 'https://img.omdbapi.com/'
);

Methods Overview

Below is a summary of the primary methods exposed by this package:

byIdOrTitle()

Retrieve detailed information about a specific movie, TV series, or episode by either its IMDb ID or title.

public function byIdOrTitle(
    ?string $title = null,      // (optional): A string containing the title to look up (e.g. “Avatar”)
    ?string $imdbID = null,     // (optional): A valid IMDb ID (e.g. “tt1285016”)
    ?string $type = null,       // (optional): The type of media to search for. Acceptable values are “movie”, “series”, "game", or “episode”.
    ?int    $year = null,       // (optional): Year of release
    ?bool   $full_plot = false, // (optional): If true, returns the full plot instead of a short summary
    mixed   $callback = null,   // (optional): JSONP callback name (if needed).
    ?string $version = null,    // (optional): Reserved for future use.
    ?array  $CURLOPT = [CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10] // An associative array of [cURL options](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php). Defaults to [CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10].
): array

Returns an error or this response:

[
  "Title" => "Avatar",
  "Year" => "2009",
  "Rated" => "PG-13",
  "Released" => "18 Dec 2009",
  "Runtime" => "162 min",
  "Genre" => "Action, Adventure, Fantasy",
  "Director" => "James Cameron",
  "Writer" => "James Cameron",
  "Actors" => "Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver",
  "Plot" => "A paraplegic Marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.",
  "Language" => "English, Spanish",
  "Country" => "United States, United Kingdom",
  "Awards" => "Won 3 Oscars. 91 wins & 131 nominations total",
  "Poster" => "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMDEzMmQwZjctZWU2My00MWNlLWE0NjItMDJlYTRlNGJiZjcyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_SX300.jpg",
  "Ratings" => [
    [
      "Source" => "Internet Movie Database",
      "Value" => "7.9/10"
    ],
    [
      "Source" => "Rotten Tomatoes",
      "Value" => "81%"
    ],
    [
      "Source" => "Metacritic",
      "Value" => "83/100"
    ]
  ],
  "Metascore" => "83",
  "imdbRating" => "7.9",
  "imdbVotes" => "1,411,534",
  "imdbID" => "tt0499549",
  "Type" => "movie",
  "DVD" => "N/A",
  "BoxOffice" => "$785,221,649",
  "Production" => "N/A",
  "Website" => "N/A",
  "Response" => "True"
];

search()

Search for multiple titles using a keyword.

public function search(
    string $title,          // (required): A string representing the search term (e.g. “Avatar”)
    ?string $type = null,   // (optional): “movie”, “series”, or “episode”
    ?int $year = null,      // Year of release to narrow down results
    ?int $page = 1,         // (optional): Page number for paginated results
    mixed $callback = null, // (optional): JSONP callback name
    ?string $version = null,// (optional): Reserved for future use
    ?array $CURLOPT = [CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10] // An associative array of [cURL options](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php). Defaults to [CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 10].
): array

Returns an error or this response:

[
  "Search" => [
    [
      "Title" => "Avatar",
      "Year" => "2009",
      "imdbID" => "tt0499549",
      "Type" => "movie",
      "Poster" => "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMDEzMmQwZjctZWU2My00MWNlLWE0NjItMDJlYTRlNGJiZjcyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_SX300.jpg"
    ],
    [
      "Title" => "Avatar: The Way of Water",
      "Year" => "2022",
      "imdbID" => "tt1630029",
      "Type" => "movie",
      "Poster" => "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNmQxNjZlZTctMWJiMC00NGMxLWJjNTctNTFiNjA1Njk3ZDQ5XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_SX300.jpg"
    ]
  ],
  "totalResults" => "113",
  "Response" => "True"
];

poster()

Get the direct URL to the poster image for a given IMDb ID.

$OmdbApi->poster('tt0499549'); // https://img.omdbapi.com/?apikey=8f8423aa&i=tt0499549

Error Handling

When a request fails (for example, if no matching title is found, cURL fails to initialize, or an invalid response comes back), the returned array includes:

[
    'ErrorType' => 'validation' | 'curl' | 'server',
    'message'   => 'A descriptive message about the error.',
    'extra'     => [...optional additional data...]
]

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page if you want to contribute.

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature-branch).
3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add some feature').
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature-branch).
5. Create a new Pull Request.