Calling Flickr API via Wordpress HTTP

Question

I'm working on a wordpress plugin which call the flickr API via a clone of the phpFlickr class. The code below is customized to use the wordpress http wrapper functions to call flickr. I have printed the http POST parameters that i'm passing in but in each case the Flickr service is saying that the 'method is not supported'. Can anybody spot any issue which might be causing this?

    function request ($command, $args = array(), $nocache = false) {
            if (substr($command,0,7) != "flickr.") {
                    $command = "flickr." . $command;
            }

            //Process arguments, including method and login data.
            $args = array_merge(array("method" => $command, "format" => "php_serial", "api_key" => $this->api_key), $args);
            if (!empty($this->token)) {
                    $args = array_merge($args, array("auth_token" => $this->token));
            } elseif (!empty($_SESSION['phpFlickr_auth_token'])) {
                    $args = array_merge($args, array("auth_token" => $_SESSION['phpFlickr_auth_token']));
            }
            ksort($args);
            $auth_sig = "";

            // http request arguments
            $body = array();
            $headers = array();

            if (!($this->response = $this->getCached($args)) || $nocache) {
                    foreach ($args as $key => $data) {
                            $auth_sig .= $key . $data;
                            $body = array_merge(array($key => $data),$body);
                    }
                    if (!empty($this->secret)) {
                            $api_sig = md5($this->secret . $auth_sig);
                            $body = array_merge(array("api_sig" => $api_sig),$body);
                    }
                    $args = array_merge($args, $body);

                    // set any headers
                    $headers = array_merge(array( 'Connection' => 'Keep-Alive' ),$headers);
                    $args = array_merge($args, $headers);

                    error_log('http args '.print_r($args,true));

                    //Sends a request to Flickr's REST endpoint via POST.
                    //$this->response = $this->wpRequest->request($this->REST,$args);
                    $this->response = wp_remote_post($this->REST,$args);

The HTTP POST arguments

    [15-Dec-2013 16:40:36 UTC] http args Array
    (
    [api_key] => .........4e8ca6671ab35280c.......
    [format] => php_serial
    [method] => flickr.people.getPublicPhotos
    [page] => 10
    [per_page] => 14
    [user_id] => 34896940@N06
    [api_sig] => 4de7adfc3aa7bc10167fee1741da5e84
    [Connection] => Keep-Alive
    )

The response is this

    [15-Dec-2013 16:40:36 UTC] Array
    (
        [headers] => Array
            (
                [date] => Sun, 15 Dec 2013 16:40:36 GMT
                [p3p] => policyref="http://info.yahoo.com/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="CAO DSP COR CUR ADM DEV TAI PSA PSD IVAi IVDi CONi TELo OTPi OUR DELi SAMi OTRi UNRi PUBi IND PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL HEA PRE LOC GOV"
                [content-length] => 128
                [cache-control] => private
                [x-served-by] => www44.flickr.bf1.yahoo.com
                [vary] => Accept-Encoding
                [content-type] => text/xml; charset=utf-8
                [age] => 0
                [server] => ATS/4.0.2
                [via] => http/1.1 r02.ycpi.ams.yahoo.net (ApacheTrafficServer/4.0.2 [c sSf ])
            )

        [body] => <xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
    <rsp stat="fail">
            <err code="112" msg="Method &quot;unknown&quot; not found" />
    </rsp>

        [response] => Array
            (
                [code] => 200
                [message] => OK
            )

        [cookies] => Array
            (
            )

        [filename] => 

Answer 1

Seem i missing the need to call wp_remote_retrieve_body() which is explained in using-wp-remote-get-to-work-with-xml-in-wordpress but NOT mentioned in the wordpress documentation for wp_remote_get()