A PHP script for fetching the latest Minecraft: Bedrock Edition releases from the app store.

ListLatestMcVersions.php

<?php

$result = json_decode(getURL("https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/minecraft/id479516143?dataOnly=true"), true);

for($i = 0, $count = count($result["pageData"]) - 1; $i < $count; ++$i) {
	$info = $result["pageData"]["versionHistory"][$i];
	$releaseTime = new \DateTime($info["releaseDate"], new \DateTimeZone("Australia/Sydney"));
	printf("Minecraft: PE version %s, released on %s" . PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL, $info["versionString"], $releaseTime->format("l\\, jS \\o\\f F Y"));
}


/**
 * GETs an URL using cURL
 * NOTE: This is a blocking operation and can take a significant amount of time. It is inadvisable to use this method on the main thread.
 *
 * @param string  $page
 * @param int     $timeout default 10
 * @param array   $extraHeaders
 * @param string  &$err    Will be set to the output of curl_error(). Use this to retrieve errors that occured during the operation.
 * @param array[] &$headers
 * @param int     &$httpCode
 *
 * @return bool|mixed false if an error occurred, mixed data if successful.
 */
function getURL(string $page, int $timeout = 10, array $extraHeaders = [], &$err = null, &$headers = null, &$httpCode = null){
	try{
		list($ret, $headers, $httpCode) = simpleCurl($page, $timeout, $extraHeaders);
		return $ret;
	}catch(\RuntimeException $ex){
		$err = $ex->getMessage();
		return false;
	}
}

/**
 * POSTs data to an URL
 * NOTE: This is a blocking operation and can take a significant amount of time. It is inadvisable to use this method on the main thread.	 *
 * @param string       $page
 * @param array|string $args
 * @param int          $timeout
 * @param array        $extraHeaders
 * @param string       &$err Will be set to the output of curl_error(). Use this to retrieve errors that occured during the operation.
 * @param array[]      &$headers
 * @param int          &$httpCode
 *
 * @return bool|mixed false if an error occurred, mixed data if successful.
 */
function postURL(string $page, $args, int $timeout = 10, array $extraHeaders = [], &$err = null, &$headers = null, &$httpCode = null){
	try{
		list($ret, $headers, $httpCode) = simpleCurl($page, $timeout, $extraHeaders, [
			CURLOPT_POST => 1,
			CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $args
		]);
		return $ret;
	}catch(\RuntimeException $ex){
		$err = $ex->getMessage();
		return false;
	}

}

/**
 * General cURL shorthand function.
 * NOTE: This is a blocking operation and can take a significant amount of time. It is inadvisable to use this method on the main thread.
 *
 * @param string        $page
 * @param float|int     $timeout      The maximum connect timeout and timeout in seconds, correct to ms.
 * @param string[]      $extraHeaders extra headers to send as a plain string array
 * @param array         $extraOpts    extra CURLOPT_* to set as an [opt => value] map
 * @param callable|null $onSuccess    function to be called if there is no error. Accepts a resource argument as the cURL handle.
 *
 * @return array a plain array of three [result body : string, headers : array[], HTTP response code : int]. Headers are grouped by requests with strtolower(header name) as keys and header value as values
 *
 * @throws \RuntimeException if a cURL error occurs
 */
function simpleCurl(string $page, $timeout = 10, array $extraHeaders = [], array $extraOpts = [], callable $onSuccess = null){

	$ch = curl_init($page);

	curl_setopt_array($ch, $extraOpts + [
			CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => false,
			CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => 2,
			CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE => 1,
			CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT => 1,
			CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER => true,
			CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,
			CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
			CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT_MS => (int) ($timeout * 1000),
			CURLOPT_TIMEOUT_MS => (int) ($timeout * 1000),
			CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => array_merge(["User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0 PHP Script"], $extraHeaders),
			CURLOPT_HEADER => true
		]);
	try{
		$raw = curl_exec($ch);
		$error = curl_error($ch);
		if($error !== ""){
			throw new \RuntimeException($error);
		}
		$httpCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
		$headerSize = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HEADER_SIZE);
		$rawHeaders = substr($raw, 0, $headerSize);
		$body = substr($raw, $headerSize);
		$headers = [];
		foreach(explode("\r\n\r\n", $rawHeaders) as $rawHeaderGroup){
			$headerGroup = [];
			foreach(explode("\r\n", $rawHeaderGroup) as $line){
				$nameValue = explode(":", $line, 2);
				if(isset($nameValue[1])){
					$headerGroup[trim(strtolower($nameValue[0]))] = trim($nameValue[1]);
				}
			}
			$headers[] = $headerGroup;
		}
		if($onSuccess !== null){
			$onSuccess($ch);
		}
		return [$body, $headers, $httpCode];
	}finally{
		curl_close($ch);
	}
}