?this=that

Snib · March 24th, 2004, 01:29 PM

Just curious....

I'm not sure where to post this, but I'll try here.

What if one of the parameters in the address bar (?this=that) references to a page that needs parameters?

Ex:

http://localhost/mypage?one=one&two=...ng&three=three

Some of the above parameters are for the first page, but some are for the page that the first page references to....?

Is there some kind of escape or something? Like %91 or %20 or something?

Thanks,

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---Snib---
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richard.york · March 28th, 2004, 08:37 PM

Use a url encoding mechanism on the entire second URL.

For instance in PHP you'd use: urlencode(), urldecode()

If you're doing this client-side with JavaScript then the escape / unescape / encodeURI / decodeURI / encodeURIComponent / decodeURIComponent methods would be used, depending on platform and encoding needs.

The second URL might have URL encoded characters already, no worries though, if using PHP each will be encoded again, decode the entire URL string, then decode each individual value, where necessary. If using JavaScript you'll need to use the escape method twice, or the encodeURI method for the first encoding, then encodeURIComponent for the entire URL.

Here's a brief demonstration:

Code:

<?php

    $url  = urlencode('http://localhost/mypage?param=thing&otherparam=otherthing&three=three+four');

    // Whole URL
    echo 'http://localhost/mypage?one=one&two='.$url.'<br />';

    // Just the second URL decoded
    echo urldecode($url).'<br />';

?>

Outputs:
http://localhost/mypage?one=one&two=...3Dthree%2Bfour
http://localhost/mypage?param=thing&...ree=three+four

: )
Rich

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