Access multiple GET parameters in PHP without bracket notation - php

Question

PHP automatically creates arrays in $_GET, when the parameter name is followed by [] or [keyname].
However for a public API I'd love to have the same behaviour without explicit brackets in the URL. For example, the query
?foo=bar&foo=baz
should result in a $_GET (or similar) like this:
$_GET["foo"] == array("bar", "baz");
Is there any possibility to get this behaviour in PHP easily? I.e., not parsing $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] myself or preg_replacing = with []= in the query string before feeding it to parse_str()?

Answer 1

There's no built in way to support ?foo=bar&foo=baz.
Daniel Morell proposed a solution which manually parses the URL string and iteratively builds up an array when multiple instances of the parameter exist, or returns a string when only one parameter exists (ie; matches the default behaviour).
It supports both types of URLs, with and without a bracket:
?foo=bar&foo=baz // works
?foo[]=bar&foo[]=baz // works
/**
* Parses GET and POST form input like $_GET and $_POST, but without requiring multiple select inputs to end the name
* in a pair of brackets.
*
* #param string $method The input method to use 'GET' or 'POST'.
* #param string $querystring A custom form input in the query string format.
* #return array $output Returns an array containing the input keys and values.
*/
function bracketless_input( $method, $querystring=null ) {
// Create empty array to
$output = array();
// Get query string from function call
if( $querystring !== null ) {
$query = $querystring;
// Get raw POST data
} elseif ($method == 'POST') {
$query = file_get_contents('php://input');
// Get raw GET data
} elseif ($method == 'GET') {
$query = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
}
// Separerate each parameter into key value pairs
foreach( explode( '&', $query ) as $params ) {
$parts = explode( '=', $params );
// Remove any existing brackets and clean up key and value
$parts[0] = trim(preg_replace( '(\%5B|\%5D|[\[\]])', '', $parts[0] ) );
$parts[0] = preg_replace( '([^0-9a-zA-Z])', '_', urldecode($parts[0]) );
$parts[1] = urldecode($parts[1]);
// Create new key in $output array if param does not exist.
if( !key_exists( $parts[0], $output ) ) {
$output[$parts[0]] = $parts[1];
// Add param to array if param key already exists in $output
} elseif( is_array( $output[$parts[0]] ) ) {
array_push( $output[$parts[0]], $parts[1] );
// Otherwise turn $output param into array and append current param
} else {
$output[$parts[0]] = array( $output[$parts[0]], $parts[1] );
}
}
return $output;
}

Answer 2

you can try something like this:
foreach($_GET as $slug => $value) {
#whatever you want to do, for example
print $_GET[$slug];
}