How to fetch CiViCRM events externally [ Drupal 7]

Question

I'm new to CiViCRM. I want to fetch events which are created in CiViCRM which is hosted on another server. So basically I want to fetch CiViCRM data from one individual site to my site. I don't know that which are the ways to do it and which is the best one. But I think Rest option would be good if I'm not wrong. I'm not able to find any similar example which is near to my task. All I don't understand that how should I use my rest url with code:

1) Option 1:

$api = new civicrm_api3(array ('server' => 'http://localhost/abc',

'api_key'=>'123456789', 'key'=>'123xyzABC'));

2) Option 2:

 $contactxml =       simplexml_load_file("http://localhost/abc/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern /rest.php?entity=contact&action=get&key=<site    key>&api_key=$apikey&last_name=Koot");
  foreach ($contactxml->children() as $contact) {
    $display = $contact->display_name;
  }

Is there any other options. I want to go for option 1 if that is possible. How to get response in JSON?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Option one: API will be the best option

Please use this link in your instance http://localhost/abc/civicrm/api/explorer or http://d46.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/api/explorer#explorer

you will get JSON output

Answer 2

It's probably easiest to use a wrapper around that call that hide the complexity.

You can copy api/class.api.php into your client server and use it as indicated in the example in the source:

 $api = new civicrm_api3 (array ('server' => 'http://example.org',
                                'api_key'=>'theusersecretkey',
                                'key'=>'thesitesecretkey'));

if $api->Contact->Get(array(
 'contact_type'=>'Individual',
 'last_name' => 'koot',
 'return'=>'sort_name,current_employer')) 
{
  // each key of the result array is an attribute of the api
  echo "\n contacts found " . $api->count;
  foreach ($api->values as $c) {
    echo "\n".$c->sort_name. " working for ". $c->current_employer;
  }
  // in theory, doesn't append
} else {
  echo $api->errorMsg();
}

should fetch from the remote civicrm server and let you do the needed with the data on your client server