php url query nested array with no index - php

Question

I'm working with a third party API that receives several parameters which must be encoded like this:
text[]=Hello%20World&text[]=How%20are%20you?&html[]=<p>Just%20fine,%20thank%20you</p>
As you can see this API can accept multiple parameters for text, and also for HTML (not in the sample call).
I have used http_build_query to correctly build a query string for other APIs
$params['text'][] = 'Hello World';
$params['text'][] = 'How are you?';
$params['html'][] = '<p>Just fine, thank you</p>';
$http_query = http_build_query($params);
The problem with this approach is that it will build a query string with the numeric index:
text[0]=Hello%20World&text[1]=How%20are%20you?&html[0]=<p>Just%20fine,%20thank%20you</p>
unfortunately the API I'm working with doesn't like the numeric index and fails.
Is there any php function/class-method that can help me build a query like this quickly?
Thank you

Answer 1

I don't know a standard way to do it (I think there is no such way), but here's an ugly solution:
Since [] is encoded by http_build_query, you may generate string with indices and then replace them.
preg_replace('/(%5B)\d+(%5D=)/i', '$1$2', http_build_query($params));

Answer 2

I very much agree with the answer by RiaD, but you might run into some problems with this code (sorry I can't just make this a comment due to lack of rep).
First off, as far as I know http_build_query returns an urlencode()'d string, which means you won't have [ and ] but instead you'll have %5B and %5D.
Second, PHP's PCRE engine recognizes the '[' character as the beginning of a character class and not just as a simple '[' (PCRE Meta Characters). This may end up replacing ALL digits from your request with '[]'.
You'll more likely want something like this:
preg_replace('/\%5B\d+\%5D/', '%5B%5D', http_build_query($params));
In this case, you'll need to escape the % characters because those also have a special meaning. Provided you have a string with the actual brackets instead of the escapes, try this:
preg_replace('/\[\d+\]/', '[]', $http_query);

Answer 3

There doesn't seem to be a way to do this with http_build_query. Sorry. On the docs page though, someone has this:
function cr_post($a,$b=0,$c=0){
if (!is_array($a)) return false;
foreach ((array)$a as $k=>$v){
if ($c) $k=$b."[]"; elseif (is_int($k)) $k=$b.$k;
if (is_array($v)||is_object($v)) {
$r[]=cr_post($v,$k,1);continue;
}
$r[]=urlencode($k)."=" .urlencode($v);
}
return implode("&",$r);
}
$params['text'][] = 'Hello World';
$params['text'][] = 'How are you?';
$params['html'][] = '<p>Just fine, thank you</p>';
$str = cr_post($params);
echo $str;
I haven't tested it. If it doesn't work then you're going to have to roll your own. Maybe you can publish a github gist so other people can use it!

Answer 4

Try this:
$params['text'][] = 'Hello World';
$params['text'][] = 'How are you?';
$params['html'][] = '<p>Just fine, thank you</p>';
foreach ($params as $key => $value) {
foreach ($value as $key2 => $value2) {
$http_query.= $key . "[]=" . $value2 . "&";
}
}
$http_query = substr($http_query, 0, strlen($http_query)-1); // remove the last '&'
$http_query = str_replace(" ", "%20", $http_query); // manually encode spaces
echo $http_query;