PHP header_redirect with multiple variables - php

Question

I am writing a PHP script that will redirect based on a link like this:
header_redirect($_GET['redirect']);
And the URL being:
https://www.url.com/index.php?change_language=english&redirect=other_page.php?category=1234&limit=24
As you can see, the actual page is
https://www.url.com/index.php?change_language=english
and the redirect is then to another page with multiple variables like:
&redirect=other_page.php?category=1234&limit=24
However, when I run the link above, I only get redirected to "other_page.php" and the additional variables are lost.
How would I achieve this?

Answer 1

You can solve this problem using some encryption and decryption trick, I have used base64_encode and base64_decode() function to solve your problem.
Step1: in your html page
<?php $redirectUrl = base64_encode('other_page.php?category=1234&limit=24'); ?>
Link1
Step 2: in your header_redirect() function, you can use base64_decode() function decode the redirect stings and get the expected one.
function header_redirect($redirect){
$redirect = base64_decode($redirect); // you can get the expected redirected url with query string
//your redirect script
}

Answer 2

Depends on what you're trying to do.
Option 1: Use http_build_query.
Try:
$target=$_GET['redirect'];
unset($_GET['redirect']);
$query_str=http_build_query($_GET);
header_redirect($target.'?'.$query_str);
If your starting URL is this:
https://www.url.com/index.php?change_language=english&redirect=other_page.php&category=1234&limit=24
You would then be redirected to:
https://www.url.com/other_page.php?change_language=english&category=1234&limit=24
Option 2: Use rawurlencode and rawurldecode.
However, if your goal is to be redirected to whatever you have stored in $_GET['redirect'] (and ignore any other variables in the URL), then you would need to encode the other_page.php&category=1234&limit=24 bit before you put it into your starting URL. This will effectively escape the special characters and allow you to simply call header_redirect(rawurldecode($_GET['redirect']));.
Say your starting URL is then:
https://www.url.com/index.php?change_language=english&redirect=other_page.php%3Fcategory%3D1234%26limit%3D24
You would then be redirected to:
https://www.url.com/other_page.php?category=1234&limit=24