I need to extract the string "Post Title" from this array. I have no idea how to reach it.
a:1:
{ i:0;
a:5:
{
s:4:"data";s:9:"Post Title";
s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}
s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";
s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;
s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";
}
}
As the comments say, you have a serialized array. But there are two potential problems with using unserialize.
You should not use unserialize on untrusted data. There's a big warning in the documentation. If you don't trust the data fully, I suggest a safer alternative like _safe_unserialize used by myBB. You can find it on github.
Second your string looks corrupted in one place. It should be s:10:"Post Title";. That means that unserialize/safe_unserialize will throw errors. To fix that, take a look at the first two answers of this question.
After you did all that, and stored the unserialized data in - let's say $arr - you can access the post title via: $array[0]['data'].
Related
So i am using this PHP code to create the json output, and I am having an issue where it’s creating an array of array with the info. I would like to get rid of one array and just display the list of API’s thats been used and number that has been used.
Looks as though the difference is you have...
"apis":[{"item_search":"0\n"},{"item_recommended":"0\n"}]
and want
"apis":{"item_search":"0\n","item_recommended":"0\n"}
If this is the case, you need to change the way you build the data from just adding new objects each time to setting the key values directly in the array...
$zone_1 = [];
foreach($zone_1_apis as $api_name ) {
$zone_1[substr($api_name, 0,-5)] = file_get_contents('keys/'.$_GET['key'].'/zone_1/'.$api_name);
}
You also need to do the same for $zone_2 as well.
It may also be good to use trim() round some of the values as they also seem to contain \n characters, so perhaps...
trim(file_get_contents('keys/'.$_GET['key'].'/zone_1/'.$api_name))
I have an array object below
33 => 'a:2:{
s :8:"latitude";
s:10:"39.3600586";
s:9:"longitude";
s:18:"-84.30993899999999";
}'
And here is the variable I'm using to get the value of that object
$events_location = $entries[1]['33'];
Is there a way to get just the value of either the latitude or longitude instead of everything in the single quotes?
Thanks!
What you have here is a serialized string. Unserialize it to access the key in the array:
$events_location = unserialize($entries[1]['33']);
echo $events_location['longitude'];
This should be a comment but its a bit long.
The string you have shown us looks vaguely like part of a serialized php entity. But it's not. If you try to unserialize this you'll get an error. The underlying data appears to be a coordinate - but even ignoring the syntactic errors, the semantics of the structure are wrong.
Please check the source you transcribed this from. If you have not copied the original content here please amend your question.
If you have transcibed it correctly then go speak to whoever supplied you with this data and ask them to fix it.
So... I need to save a large-ish amount of data from a platform with an excruciatingly limited amount of memory.
Because of this, I'm basically storing the data on my webserver, using a php script to just write JSON to a flat file, because I'm lazy af.
I could go to the trouble of having it store the data in my mysql server, but frankly the flat file thing should have been trivial, but I've run up against a problem. There are several quick and dirty workarounds that would fix it, but I've been trying to fix it the "right" way (I know, I know, the right way would be to just store the data in mysql, but I actually need to be able to take the json file this produces and send it back to the platform that needs the data (In a ridiculously roundabout fashion), so it made sense to just have the php save it as a flat file in the first place. And It's already working, aside from this one issue, so I hate to reimpliment.
See... Because of the low memory on the platform I'm sending the json to my server from... I'm sending things one field at a time. Each call to the php script is only setting ONE field.
So basically what I'm doing is loading the file from disk if it exists, and running it through json_decode to get my storage object, and then the php file gets a key argument and a value argument, and if the key is something like "object1,object2", it explodes that, gets the length of the resulting array, and then stores the value in $data->$key[0]->$key[1].
Then it's saved back to disk with fwrite($file, json_encode($data));
This is all working perfectly. Except when $value is a simple string. If it's an array, it works perfectly. If it's a number, it works fine. If it's a string, I get null from json_decode. I have tried every way I can think of to force quotes on to the ends of the $value variable in the hopes of getting json_decode to recognize it. Nothing works.
I've tried setting $data->$key[0]->$key[1] = $value in cases where value is a string, and not an array or number. No dice, php just complains that I'm trying to set an object that doesn't exist. It's fine if I'm using the output of json_decode to set the field, but it simply will not accept a string on its own.
So I have no idea.
Does anyone know how I can either get json_decode to not choke on a string that's just a string, or add a new field to an existing php object without using the output of json_decode?
I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing. It should be clear I'm no php guru. I've never really used arrays and objects in php, so their vagaries are not something I'm familiar with.
Solutions I'm already aware of, but would prefer to avoid, are: I could have the platform that's sending the post requests wrap single, non-numeric values with square braces, creating a single item array, but this shouldn't be necessary, as far as I'm aware, so doing this bothers me (And ends up costing me something like half a kilobyte of storage that shouldn't need to be used).
I could also change some of my json from objects to arrays in order to get php to let me add items more readily, but it seems like there should be a solution that doesn't require that, so I'd really prefer not to...
I skim through your post.
And I know this works for StdClass :
$yourClass->newField = $string;
Is this what you wanted ?
OK so... ultimately, as succinctly as possible, the problem was this:
Assuming we have this JSON in $data:
{
"key1":
{
"key2":["somedata","someotherdata"]
}
}
And we want it to be:
{
"key1":
{
"key2":["somedata","someotherdata"],
"key3":"key3data"
}
}
The php script has received "key=key1,key3&value=key3data" as its post data, and is initialized thusly:
$key = $_POST["key"];
$key = explode($key,",");
$value = $_POST["value"];
...which provides us with an array ($key) representing the nested json key we want to set as a field, and a variable ($value) holding the value we want to set it to.
Approach #1:
$data->$key[0]->$key[1] = json_decode($value);
...fails. It creates this JSON when we re-encode $data:
{
"key1":
{
"key2":["somedata","someotherdata"],
"key3":null
}
}
Approach #2:
$data->$key[0]->$key[1] = $value;
...also fails. It fails to insert the field into $data at all.
But then I realized... the problem with #2 is that it won't let me set the nonexistent field, and the problem with approach #1 is that it sets the field wrong.
So all I have to do is brute force it thusly:
$data->$key[0]->$key[1] = json_decode($value);
if (json_decode($value) == NULL)
{
$data->$key[0]->$key[1] = $value;
}
This works! Since Approach #1 has created the field (Albeit with the incorrect value), PHP now allows me to set the value of that field without complaint.
It's a very brute force sort of means of fixing the problem, and I'm sure there are better ones, if I understood PHP objects better. But this works, so at least I have my code working.
What would you say is the most efficient way to get a single value out of an Array. I know what it is, I know where it is. Currently I'm doing it with:
$array = unserialize($storedArray);
$var = $array['keyOne'];
Wondering if there is a better way.
You are doing it fine, I can't think of a better way than what you are doing.
You unserialize
You get an array
You get value by specifying index
That's the way it can be done.
Wondering if there is a better way.
For the example you give with the array, I think you're fine.
If the serialized string contains data and objects you don't want to unserialize (e.g. creating objects you really don't want to have), you can use the Serialized PHP library which is a complete parser for serialized data.
It offers low-level access to serialized data statically, so you can only extract a subset of data and/or manipulate the serialized data w/o unserializing it. However that looks too much for your example as you only have an array and you don't need to filter/differ too much I guess.
Its most efficient way you can do, unserialize and get data, if you need optimize dont store all variables serialized.
Also there is always way to parse it with regexp :)
If you dont want to unseralize the whole thing (which can be costly, especially for more complex objects), you can just do a strpos and look for the features you want and extract them
Sure.
If you need a better way - DO NOT USE serialized arrays.
Serialization is just a transport format, of VERY limited use.
If you need some optimized variant - there are hundreds of them.
For example, you can pass some single scalar variable instead of whole array. And access it immediately
I, too, think the right way is to un-serialize.
But another way could be to use string operations, when you know what you want from the array:
$storedArray = 'a:2:{s:4:"test";s:2:"ja";s:6:"keyOne";i:5;}';
# another: a:2:{s:4:"test";s:2:"ja";s:6:"keyOne";s:3:"sdf";}
$split = explode('keyOne', $storedArray, 2);
# $split[1] contains the value and junk before and after the value
$splitagain = explode(';', $split[1], 3);
# $splitagain[1] should be the value with type information
$value = array_pop(explode(':', $splitagain[1], 3));
# $value contains the value
Now, someone up for a benchmark? ;)
Another way might be RegEx ?
I am looking to have a list of arguments passed across in an a URL.
$url['key1']=1;
$url['key2']=2;
$url['key3']=3;
$url['key4']=4;
$url['key5']=5;
$url['key6']=6;
$url['key7']=7;
Please Note I am trying to pass this in the URL in 1 GET variable. I know this would be better done by ?key1=1&key2=2&key3=3...etc but for reasons that are too complicated to try and explain they can't be in this format.
Any suggestions how I can convert this array into something that can be passed as 1 get var in a URL string?
Thanks in advance.
You can use json_encode() or serialize()
$myUrl = 'http://www.example.com/?myKey=' . urlencode(json_encode($url));
or
$myUrl = 'http://www.example.com/?myKey=' . urlencode(serialize($url));
Using json_encode will usually give you a shorter string, but very old PHP version might not have the json_decode function available to decode it again.
The final way would be to create your own custom encoding... it could be as simple a pipe-separated values: key1|1|key2|2|key3|3
This would give you the best option for a short URL, but is the most work.
Try http_build_query:
$url['key1']=1;
$url['key2']=2;
$url['key3']=3;
$url['key4']=4;
$url['key5']=5;
$url['key6']=6;
$url['key7']=7;
echo http_build_query($url);
//echos key1=1&key2=2&key3=3&key...
What it does is converting an array into a query string using the keys and automatically takes care of url-encoding.
EDIT:
Just read your additional requirement that it should be just one variable. So nevermind this answer.
If your problem was the proper encoding though you might want to give this another try.
Hope that helps.
The recommendation to use serialize() is fine. If space is an issue, then use a combination of bzcompress() and serialize().
However, there's a security considering that hasn't been brought up, and that's that the end user (who can see and edit this url) could manipulate the data within it. You may think it's difficult, but most of the PHP-attacking worms in the wild do this to some degree or another.
If letting the user directly manipulate any of the keys or values (or replacing it with an integer, or an object, or anything else), then you should protect your script (and your users) from this attack.
A simple solution is to simply use a shared secret. It can be anything; just so long as it's unique and truly secret (perhaps you should randomly generate it at install-time). Let's say you have in your config file something like this:
define('SECRET', 'unoqetbioqtnioqrntbioqt');
Then, you can digitally sign the serialized data created with: $s=serialize($m) using $k=sha1($s.SECRET) and make the url value $k.$s
Then, before you unserialize() do this:
$v=substr($input,0,40);
$s=substr($input,40);
if ($v != sha1($s.SECRET)) { die("invalid input"); }
$m=unserialize($s);
This way, you know that $m is the same as the original value that you serialized.
If you like, you can use the following drop-in replacements:
define('SECRET','buh9tnb1094tib014'); // make sure you pick something else
function secureserialize($o) {
$s=serialize($o);
return sha1($s.SECRET).$s;
}
function secureunserialize($i) {
$v=substr($i,0,40);$s=substr($i,40);
if ($v!=sha1($s.SECRET)){die("invalid input");}
return unserialize($s);
}
You could serialize them as key-value pairs when constructing the URL, putting the resultant serialized value in a single $_GET variable (e.g. data=sfsdfasdf98sdfasdf), then unserialize the $_GET["data"] variable. You'll need to use urlencode to make sure the resultant serialized values are URL-safe. Make sure you watch out for maximum URL lengths - 2083 characters in IE.
However, unless you really can't use key-value pairs in URLs (per your question), key1=foo&key2=bar... is definitely the way to go.
If you don't mind dropping the key names, you can use
http://example.com?url[]=1&url[]=2&url[]=3
EDIT Keeping the key names:
http://example.com?values[]=1&values[]=2&values[]=3&keys[]=1&keys[]=2&keys[]=3
Then in your PHP script:
$url = array_combine($_GET['keys'], $_GET['values']);
Could you solve your problem by saving the data as a HTML cookie? That way you don't have to modify the URL at all.
If you know the values in advance, you can set them from the server side when you send the user the page with your target link on it.
If you won't know the values until the user fills out a form it can still be done using JavascriptL When the user clicks the form submit you can set multiple cookies by making multiple javascript calls like:
document.cookie = 'key1=test; expires=Mon, 7 Sept 2009 23:47:11 UTC; path=/'
The security model might give you some trouble if you are trying to pass this data from one domain to another though.