CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpurlgetquery-stringurl-encoding
Charles Park
Charles Park

Reputation: 63

How to handle an un-encoded special character in a url query string?

I have a url like this:

http://www.nearbynursinghomes.com/innerpage.php?state=CA&city=RIVERSIDE&shop=ALTA%20VISTA%20HEALTHCARE%20&%20WELLNESS%20CENTRE

I'm currently using this code: 

$category = $_GET["state"];
$city= $_GET["city"];
$shop= $_GET["shop"];
if (isset($_GET["page"])) { $page  = $_GET["page"]; } else { $page=1; }; 

$start_from = ($page-1) * $results_per_page;
$sql = "SELECT *
    FROM $datatable 
    WHERE STATE='$category'
    AND CITY='$city'
    AND PROVNAME='$shop'
    ORDER BY PROVNAME ASC LIMIT $start_from, $results_per_page" ;
$rs_result = $conn->query($sql);

However it doesn't return the proper value because of the & in the middle of the value which says shop=ALTA%20VISTA%20HEALTHCARE%20&%20WELLNESS%20CENTRE.

It just gets cut off. How would I fix this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 72

Answers (2)

mickmackusa
mickmackusa

Reputation: 48041

You have a malformed querystring in your url. You should do everything in your power to correct this at its source.

If you are unable to do so, then a workaround is the best you can do.

This is not a particularly efficient method, nor a simple pattern (Pattern Demo), but it will work on your sample string.

You can leverage $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] or whatever you wish to capture your url, then use this preg_match() method (PHP Demo):

$url=urldecode('http://www.nearbynursinghomes.com/innerpage.php?state=CA&city=RIVERSIDE&shop=ALTA%20VISTA%20HEALTHCARE%20&%20WELLNESS%20CENTRE');
if(preg_match_all('/(?<=[?&])([^=]+)=\K[^=]+(?=&|$)/',$url,$qs)){
    //              key------^^^^^^^   ^^^^^-------value
    $array=array_combine($qs[1],$qs[0]);
    var_export($array);
}

Output:

array (
  'state' => 'CA',
  'city' => 'RIVERSIDE',
  'shop' => 'ALTA VISTA HEALTHCARE & WELLNESS CENTRE',
)

Then you can reference those array elements when you write your MySQLi prepared statements with placeholders.

If you are happy to access the other key-value pairs with $_GET and only want to extract the shop value then this is simple/direct way:

Code: (Demo)

$url = urldecode('http://www.nearbynursinghomes.com/innerpage.php?state=CA&city=RIVERSIDE&shop=ALTA%20VISTA%20HEALTHCARE%20&%20WELLNESS%20CENTRE&page=4');
echo preg_match('~[?&]shop=\K[^=]+(?=&|$)~', $url, $out) ? $out[0] : '[fail]';

Output:

ALTA VISTA HEALTHCARE & WELLNESS CENTRE

(Pattern Demo)

Upvotes: 1

Charles Park
Charles Park

Reputation: 63

After a good nights rest i came up with this solution using the tools provided here. 

$shop= $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$shop= explode("=", $shop,4);
$shop= $shop[3];
$shop= urldecode("$shop");

Upvotes: 0

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