Robust PHP API for Receipt OCR & Expense Data Extraction

// 💰 Save hours of regex debugging. Get 20 free credits instantly:
// 👉 https://structocr.com/register

<?php

$imagePath = '/path/to/dinner_receipt.jpg'; // Path to your uploaded image
$apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY'; // Replace with your StructOCR API key

// 1. Safely read the image file and encode it to Base64
$imageData = file_get_contents($imagePath);
if ($imageData === false) {
    die('❌ Failed to read image file. Check file permissions.');
}
$base64Image = base64_encode($imageData);

// 2. Prepare the JSON payload
$payload = json_encode(['img' => $base64Image]);

// 3. Initialize the cURL session targeting the Receipt endpoint
$ch = curl_init('https://api.structocr.com/v1/receipt');

// 4. Configure cURL options for a POST request
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $payload,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'x-api-key: ' . $apiKey,
        'Content-Type: application/json'
    ],
]);

// 5. Execute the API request
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// 6. Handle cURL network errors
if (curl_errno($ch)) {
    die('❌ cURL error: ' . curl_error($ch));
}
curl_close($ch);

// 7. Decode the structured JSON response into a PHP associative array
$result = json_decode($response, true);

// 8. Safely parse the extracted expense data
if (isset($result['success']) && $result['success'] && $result['data']['is_valid']) {
    $data = $result['data'];
    
    echo "✅ Receipt Parsed Successfully!\n";
    echo "Merchant: " . $data['merchant_name'] . " (Confidence: " . $data['confidence'] . ")\n";
    echo "Date: " . $data['date'] . " " . $data['time'] . "\n";
    echo "Total: " . $data['total_amount'] . " " . $data['currency'] . "\n";
    echo "Tax: " . $data['tax_amount'] . "\n\n";
    
    // Loop through individual purchased items
    echo "--- Line Items ---\n";
    foreach ($data['items'] as $item) {
        echo "- " . $item['name'] . " (Qty: " . $item['quantity'] . ") = " . $item['price'] . "\n";
    }

} else {
    $errorMsg = $result['data']['validation_error'] ?? 'Unknown extraction error or invalid receipt.';
    echo "❌ Extraction Failed: " . $errorMsg . "\n";
}

?>