sending a filepath in json string to PHP codeigniter - php

I have to send a filepath via. a json string to my controller in codeigniter
I have already modifed codeigniters config to accept a json string as a paramater
example:
www.mysite.com/controller/function/{"foo":"bar","hello":"word"}
This works fine.
But now I want to pass in a file path like this
www.mysite.com/controller/function/{"path":"D:\my\path\to\file.txt","foo":"bar"}
When i urldecode the paramter sent to the function in the controller I get a nice string looking like this
{"path":"D:\my\path\to\file.txt","foo":"bar"}
When I try to json_decode this I get
NULL
Can anyone help me with this?

Since it's JSON, you have to consider that your directory separators are going to be treated as escapes by the JSON parser. JSON has NO idea that you're passing in a path. It's just going to see a bunch of unnecessary escapes. The JSON must be syntactically valid, which means:
{"path":"D:\\my\\path\\to\\file.txt","foo":"bar"}
Note the doubled-up backslashes. Also note that on Windows, PHP is smart enough to accept forward slashes as the path separators as well, and will auto-convert for your as necessary. d:/my/path/to/file.txt would work just as well.

Related

Pass string, containing a slash as get-param

I'm wondering if it's possible to parse a string containing an URL as GET parameter using Mod-Rewrite through CakePHP. Do I have to pass this via $this->request->data (POST)?
Is it common to set Routes for such cases or would you either recommend splitting the URL into separate parameters?
A slash in $_GET? Woudn't that just be a query string containing such a slash?
See http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/controllers/request-response.html#accessing-querystring-parameters
By default those query strings are properly escaped, so all is well without any hacks on your end.
You can use rawurlencode() to esacpe special characters.

large link when using $_get

i am processing a activation link.which looks like this.
localhost/actvte/validate.php?type=activate&geo=define&
value=227755RYQBENU5G8WE7RFPO6CD6Z#MJ1H1FA#G#IZWZ53903
&target=loaded&resrc=G6MYMI2R67727229911380184297841084713071U8VUYIGR
&master=user#gmail.com
but when i use $_get['value'] i get o/p only "227755RYQBENU5G8WE7RFPO6CD6Z".after this whole link becomes useless.if i do
echo $_get['target']; or echo $_get['master'];
it says undefined variable 'target' or 'master'.
so how can i process this large link.
What you should do is use the urlencode() function in PHP on the string before putting it in the GET. This way your string becomes 227755RYQBENU5G8WE7RFPO6CD6Z%23MJ1H1FA%40G%23IZWZ53903 and not 227755RYQBENU5G8WE7RFPO6CD6Z#MJ1H1FA#G#IZWZ53903 as special characters cannot be used in the query string.
Hashes for example will never even be send by the browser to the server, so everything behind that will not reach you.
Please look at RFC 3986 for more information about the URI syntaxing (including hashes).
By not using or properly encoding the fragment identifier (#).
You should not use # in the URL but encode it some way, or use another character.
The first # in a URL indicates the start of the fragment identifier. If you want to send it as data rather then a separator component of a URL then you need to express it as %23.

Allow certain characters to pass through $_GET?

I wrote a script that when you enter a textbox, it will open an invisible iframe to a .php file with $_GET of what they wrote into the textbox.
However, for example, if I type: '<3' in it, this is what happens.
PHP determins that the $_GET[s] is blank! Users cant put a simple <3 symbol without getting that error.
Another problem is quotes, if I write any quotes, it will end the entire SRC property.
What should I do? Should I do something with javascript, or even PHP? Please let me know!
Thanks!
Use urlencode to encode the inputted string into a valid one for URL use.
Also be very cautious when allowing user input into your PHP script through the URL. Make sure you do proper checks/sanitization, especially if database operations are involved.
It looks like your iframe is generated by JavaScript, so all those answers that include PHP functions are useless. The data isn't even reaching PHP, so how can any PHP function hope to help?
Instead, try using urlencode from PHPJS, since none of JS's functions really handle all cases well, and this makes it easy for you to use PHP's urldecode to retrieve the data.
You need to encode that character as <.
Regarding double quotes, you can use this trick.
attr='Your string can "contain double quotes"'
or
attr="Your string can 'contain double quotes'"
but while specifying variable=values in url, you don't need to user double quotes, you can directly assign the values.
like
url="test.php?var1=123&var2=345"
rest about sending the <3 characters, you can check for url encoding in javascript & PHP whichever applicable!

Ampersand problem in XML when creating a URL String

I am working with an XML feed that has, as one of it's nodes, a URL string similar to the following:
http://aflite.co.uk/track/?aid=13414&mid=32532&dl=http://www.google.com/&aref=chris
I understand that ampersands cause a lot of problems in XML and should be escaped by using & instead of a naked &. I therefore changed the php to read as follows:
<node><?php echo ('http://aflite.co.uk/track/?aid=13414&mid=32532&dl=http://www.google.com/&aref=chris'); ?></node>
However when this generates the XML feed, the string appears with the full &
and so the actual URL does not work. Apologies if this is a very basic misunderstanding but some guidance would be great.
I've also tried using %26 instead of & but still getting the same problem.
If you are inserting something into XML/HTML you should always use the htmlspecialchars function. this will escape your strings into correct XML syntax.
but you are running into a second problem.
your have added a second url to the first one.
this need also escaped into url syntax.
for this you need to use urlencode.
<node><?php echo htmlspecialchars('http://aflite.co.uk/track/?aid=13414&mid=32532&aref=chris&dl='.urlencode('http://www.google.com/')); ?></node>
& is correct for escaping ampersands in an XML document. The example you've given should work.
You state that it doesn't work, but you haven't stated what application you're using, or in what way it doesn't work. What exactly happens when you click the link? Do the & strings end up in the browser's URL field? If that's the case, it sounds like a fault with the software you've viewing the XML with. Have you tried looking at the XML in another application to see if the problem is consistent?
To answer the final part of your question: %26 would definitely not work for you -- this would be what you'd use if your URL parameters needed to contain ampersands. Say for example in aref=chris, if the name chris were to an ampersand (lets say the username was chris&bob), then that ampersand would need to be escaped using %26 so that the URL parser didn't see it as starting a new URL parameter.
Hope that helps.

escaping json string with a forward slash?

I am having a problem passing a json string back to a php script to process.
I have a json string that's been created by using dojo.toJson() that contains a / and looks like this:
[{"id":"2","company":"My Company / Corporation","jobrole":"Consultant","jobtitle":"System Integration Engineer"}]
When I pass the string back to the php script it get's chopped at the / and creates a malformed json string, which then means I can't convert it into a php array.
What is the best way of escaping the / in this string? I was looking at regular expressions and doing a string.replace() however my regex isn't that strong, and I'm not sure if there are better ways of doing this?
Many thanks
You shouldn't need to do anything special to represent a / in JSON - a string can contain any character except a " or (when not used to start an escape sequence) \.
The problem is possibly therefore in:
the way you parse the JSON server side
the way your parse the HTTP data to get the JSON string
the way you encode the string before making the HTTP request
(I'd bet on it being the last of those options).
I would start by using a tool such as LiveHttpHeaders or Charles Proxy to see exactly what data is sent to the server.
(I'd also expand the question with the code you use to make the request, and the code you use to parse it at the other end).
\/. Take a look here. The documentation is really easy to read, concise and clear. But unescaped / should still be valid in JSON's string so maybe your bug is somewhere else?
Ok. Anyway.
When passing variables to PHP don't use JSON - it's good for passing variables other way.
Instead you better use http://api.dojotoolkit.org/jsdoc/1.3/dojo.objectToQuery method and on PHP side parse standard PHP $_GET variables.
EDIT: Ok, I'm 'lost in the woods' here also, but here's a tip - check if you don't have some mod_rewrite rules in action here. Kind of seems like that.
Also, if you can send me the URL which gave you 404 (you can cut out domain part, i'm interested in script filename and all afterwards) maybe I can give you more detailed answer.
To be clear, whether you choose to send JSON to PHP or use regular form values is a matter of preference. It /should/ work either way. It sounds like you aren't url-encoding the JSON at the client-side so the server-side is treating / as a path delimiter. In which case its borked before json_decode gets to it.
so, try encodeURIComponent( dojo.toJson(stuff) )
json_encode() used to escape forward slashes. like this:
prompt> json_encode(json_decode('"A/B"'));
string(6) ""A\/B""
JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES was added in PHP5.4 to suppress this behavior.

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