Passing a variable to S3 get_object_url, unexpected character encoding - php

Question

Not an experienced developer and using CodeIgniter for the first time. I'm trying to grab a signed URL for a given MP3 filename stored in S3. This is currently working with the exception of files that contain brackets.
Relevant controller code:
function index ($streamfile) {
// Load S3 client
$this->load->spark('amazon-sdk');
$s3 = $this->awslib->get_s3();
// Define request parameters
$s3bucket = $userdata['s3bucket']; // defined elsewhere
$streamfiletest = ($string)'Crazy_(Remix).mp3';
// Request signed URL
$url = $s3->get_object_url($s3bucket, ***EITHER $streamfiletest or $streamfile***, '5 minutes');
// Fetch status code
$http = new CFRequest($url);
$http->add_header('Content-Type', '');
$http->send_request(true);
$code = $http->get_response_code();
$headers = $http->get_response_header();
// Load the view
$data['filename'] = $url;
$data['debug'] = array(
'file1' => $streamfile,
'file2' => $streamfiletest,
'signed_url' => $url,
'code' => $code,
'headers' => $headers
);
$this->load->view('play', $data);
Relevant view code:
<?php if (isset($debug)) {
echo "DEBUGS:";
echo '<pre>' . print_r($debug, TRUE) . '</pre>';
} ?>
As you can see I either pass $streamfile or $streamfiletest. In the debug I can confirm that both variables are the same string.
When passing $streamfile to the URL request, the URL in the response is incorrect:
DEBUGS:
[file1] => Crazy_(Remix).mp3
[file2] => Crazy_(Remix).mp3
[signed_url] => http://s3-...(removed)/Crazy_%26%2340%3BRemix%26%2341%3B.mp3?AWSAccessKey...
[code] => 404
You can see that the brackets have been strangely encoded %26%2340%3B and therefore I can't find the file in S3.
When passing $streamfiletest however, the response is fine:
DEBUGS:
[file1] => Crazy_(Remix).mp3
[file2] => Crazy_(Remix).mp3
[signed_url] => http://s3-...(removed)/Crazy_%28Remix%29.mp3?AWSAccessKey...
[code] => 200
The brackets are encoded correctly in the signed URL an I get a HTTP 200 from S3.
Any ideas what could be causing this?

Answer 1

In the debug I can confirm that both variables are the same string
Actually, not quite.
If you look closely, it becomes apparent what the url escaped values must mean:
%26%2340%3B %26%2341%3B
& # 40 ; & # 41 ;
Those are numeric html character codes that the browser will display as ( and ) but it does not in fact mean that the two strings have identical content. They only appear to.
The solution, of course, depends on how they are getting transformed that way, and either not doing that, or decoding the numeric character codes.

Answer 2

Try doing the following to decode the url encoded brackets
$data['filename'] = urldecode($url);
This should return the string to its expected format ie with brackets