I see many questions about passing an array as a query string in PHP, and it seems the prevailing way is using brackets as in key[]=foo&key[]=bar.
However I cannot find a straight answer about how to send an object (or a key=>value associative array - same thing) as a query string.
Currently, however I do it is:
STRING
?foo=bar&hello=world
Then on the server side, I would do:
<?php
$array = array();
$array['foo']=$_GET['foo'];
$array['hello']=$_GET['hello'];
?>
Of course when using $_POST, this is very simple with an ajax request. Any object you send automatically serializes and isn't a problem.
Is this the best way to handle it, or is there some other standard for sending an object in a query string using PHP?
You can use an associative array in a form and in the query string:
object[foo]=bar&object[hello]=world
To build it URL encoded:
$data['object']['foo'] = 'bar';
$data['object']['hello'] = 'world';
echo http_build_query($data);
Yields:
object%5Bfoo%5D=bar&object%5Bhello%5D=world
You can go many levels and/or use dynamically added elements. In general, in text form, it looks just like a PHP array
object[foo][more][even more][]
Or:
object[foo][][more][even more]
Related
I am using a jQuery plugin of nestable forms and storing the order of these in a database using serialize (achieved through JS). Once I retrieve this data from the database I need to be able to unserialize it so that each piece of data can be used.
An example of the data serialized and stored is
[{"id":"H592736029375"},{"id":"K235098273598"},{"id":"B039571208517"}]
The number of ID's stored in each serialized data varies and the JS plugin adds the [ and ] brackets around the serialization.
I have used http://www.unserialize.com/ to test an unserialization of the data and it proves successful using print_r. I have tried replicating this with the following code:
<?php
print_r(unserialize('[{"id":"H592736029375"},{"id":"K235098273598"},{"id":"B039571208517"}]'));
?>
but I get an error. I am guessing that I need to use something similar to strip_tags to remove the brackets, but am unsure. The error given is as follows
Notice: unserialize(): Error at offset 0 of 70 bytes
Once I have the unserialized data I need to be able to use each ID as a variable and I am assuming to do so I need to do something as:
<?php
$array = unserialize('[{"id":"H592736029375"},{"id":"K235098273598"},{"id":"B039571208517"}]');
foreach($array as $key => $val)
{
// Do something here, use each individial ID however
// e.g database insert using $val['id']; to get H592736029375 then K235098273598 and finally B039571208517
}
?>
Is anyone able to offer any help as to how to strip the serialized data correctly to have the ID's ready in an array to then be used in the foreach function?
Much appreciated.
PHP's serialize() and unserialize() functions are PHP specific, not for communicating with other languages.
It looks like your JS serialize function is actually generating JSON though, so on the PHP side, use json_decode() rather than unserialize.
Here's a fiddle
$data = '[{"id":"H592736029375"},{"id":"K235098273598"},{"id":"B039571208517"}]';
$array = json_decode($data, true);
foreach($array as $index=>$data){
echo "$index) {$data['id']}\n";
}
Outputs:
0) H592736029375
1) K235098273598
2) B039571208517
I would like to send an integer array with 30 values Integer[] temp = new Integer[30] over HTTP (POST) to PHP an get the data in PHP again. How can I do that? I know how to send a single value, like a string, but not how to send an array.
One way is to serialize the array in the way the php serialize command does it.
After receiving the string value(by the method you currently use), you can use the unserialize command to get the array in your php code.
Here is a litle php example to demonstrate the workflow.
$arr = array(1,2,3,4,5,6);
$stringArr = serialize($arr);
echo $stringArr;
echo "<br/>";
$arr2 = unserialize($stringArr);
if ($arr === $arr2)
{
echo "arrays are equal";
}
The output of the script is:
a:6:{i:0;i:1;i:1;i:2;i:2;i:3;i:3;i:4;i:4;i:5;i:5;i:6;}
arrays are equal
The main difficulty is to construct the resulting string for complex structures (in your case, it is pretty straight forward for an array of integers).
This fact results in the second approach.
One can use a serialization API or another notation than used by the php example.
As stated by the others, JSON is one of the widespread notations.
PHP also provides a possibility to serialize and unserialize json objects.
Simply use json_decode and look at the example in the manual.
I'm using wordpress and one of my meta key values is stored like this:
a:1:{i:0;s:8:"Religion";}
I'm trying to figure out the easiest way in PHP to parse this so I can extract "Religion" or really any of the elements in a clean manner.
Hope this makes sense - thanks!!!
Loren
that is a serialized array, use unserialize()
$array = unserialize('a:1:{i:0;s:8:"Religion";}');
echo $array[0];
This works in PHP 5.2 and above:
list($thatWord) = unserialize($metaKeyValue);
You then have the string "Religion" in $thatWord.
The string you have:
a:1:{i:0;s:8:"Religion";}
Is a serialized array. If you retrieve it from within wordpress, you would get an Array instead of a string. I assume you pull it from the database directly, so you need to unserializeDocs it your own.
Disclaimer: I am fairly new to using json.
I am trying to use php to receive json data from an iPAd application. I know how to convert json to an array in php, but how do I actually receive it and store it into a variable so it can be decoded?
Here are a couple examples that I have tried based on google and stackoverflow searches.
$json_request = #file_get_contents('php://input');
$array = json_decode($json_request);
AND ALSO
$array = json_decode($_POST['data'], true);
Any suggestions?
You have the basic idea already.
you should test that the value is set and also strip extra slashes from the incoming string before trying to parse it as JSON.
if(isset($_POST['data'])){
$array = json_decode(stripslashes($_POST['data']),true);
//$array now holds an associative array
}//Data Exists
It also would not be a bad idea before you start working with the array to test that the call to json_decode() was successful by ensuring that $array isn't null before use.
If you do not fully trust the integrity of the information being sent you should do extended checking along the way instead of trusting that a given key exists.
if($array){ // Or (!is_null($array)) Or (is_array($array)) could be used
//Process individual information here
//Without trust
if(isset($array['Firstname'])){
$CustomerId = $array['Firstname'];
}//Firstname exists
}//$array is valid
I in-particular like to verify information when I am building queries dynamically for information that may not be required for a successful db insert.
In the above example $_POST['data'] indicates that what ever called the PHP script did so passing the JSON string using the post method in a variable identified as data.
You could check more generically to allow flexibility in the sending method by using the $_REQUEST variable, or if you know it is coming as via the get method you can check $_GET. $_REQUEST holds all incoming parameters from both get and post.
If you don't know what the name of the variable coming in is and want to play really fast and loose you could loop over the keys in $_REQUEST trying to decode each one and use the one that successfully decoded (if any). [Note: I'm not encouraging this]
Im running a javascript code which reads values from different XML files and it generates a multidimentional array based on those values. Now I need to pass this array to a PHP page. I tried different but it always pass the arrray as string not as an array.
Anyone has an idea :( ... and thank you very much
What Caleb said.
Use this and JSON encode your JS array to a string, send it over to PHP and use json_decode to decode it into a PHP array.
You need a JSON encoder/decoder to do that. Prototype has it implemented by default and with jQuery you can use jQuery-JSON
For example if you use Prototype as your JS library then you can convert your array into a string like that:
var example_multi_dim_arr = {"a":[1,2,3], "b": [4,5,6]};
var string_to_be_sent_to_server = Object.toJSON(example_multi_dim_arr);
And in the PHP side (assuming that the JSON string is passed to the script as a POST variable)
$multi_dim_arr = json_decode($_POST["variable_with_json"], true);
The last true field in json_decode indicates that the output should be in the form of an array ($multi_dim_arr["a"]) and not as an object ($multi_dim_arr->a).
NB! the function json_decode is not natively available in PHP 4, you should find a corresponding JSON class if you are using older versions of PHP. In PHP 5 everything should work fine.