How to use special characters in text for CURL functions - php

Question

I have integrated SMS gateway and using curl functions to send SMS. In the text which I am sending I have a '#' symbol because of which curl function is failed.
My text is
$smsbody = "A new user has logged in\nEmail: testemail#gmail.com";
Below is my code:
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "{
\"Text\": \"$smsbody\",
\"Number\": \"$tomobile\",
\"SenderId\": \"Example\",
\"DRNotifyUrl\": \"https://www.example.com\",
\"DRNotifyHttpMethod\": \"POST\",
\"Tool\": \"API\"
}");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: ".$smsauthor
));
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
If I remove '#' symbol then I am able to send message successfully. For the messages with '#' symbol, message is getting failed.
How to encode the symbol '#' or what could be the alternative for this problem?

Answer 1

Use curl_escape ( resource $ch , string $str ). Docs
This function URL encodes the given string according to » RFC 3986.
Using:
<?php
// Create a curl handle
$ch = curl_init();
// Escape a string used as a GET parameter
$location = curl_escape($ch, 'Hofbräuhaus / München');
// Result: Hofbr%C3%A4uhaus%20%2F%20M%C3%BCnchen
// Compose an URL with the escaped string
$url = "http://example.com/add_location.php?location={$location}";
// Result: http://example.com/add_location.php?location=Hofbr%C3%A4uhaus%20%2F%20M%C3%BCnchen
// Send HTTP request and close the handle
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_exec($ch);
curl
_close($ch);
?>