[Resolved] passing variables including "&" through URL

hammerslane

i'm trying to pass a variable called "company name" through the url to automatically populate a form field on a page.
many companies have the "&" character in their name, for example "me & sons ltd."
this causes the problem that i can't pass the company name through, not even the URL Encoding (%26), as the variable is being passed through multiple pages and links: and is converted to "&" after the first link is clicked, meaning that it loses the encoding and turns into a "&" and mucks up the address.

is there a remedy for this? i've only read part of a beginning php book, and i'm not very experienced.

i hope i've explained this so you can understand... if there are any questions i'll re-phrase what i've written.

thanks very much,
kris

sarahk

firstly, urlencode and urldecode should work if used properly.

but you could also
save the company name in a session
save the company name in a hidden field and use forms for all future navigation
* save the company name in cookies so it will be available for this and subsequent visits.

I'd probably go with the session.

hammerslane

hmm - i'm really something of a novice...

here's the URL which carries the variable value

http://www.my site.com/form.php?companyname=Me%20%26%20Sons
(the company name translates decoded as "Me & Sons")

i then have a 'company name' field which when i echo the $companyname, it enters in the company name value. however there are several pages BEFORE the form.php which, as i said, take away whatever's after the "&" sign.

could someone tell me exactly where i should use the urlencode() function?

thx sarah

regards

paulnaj

You need to urlencode() a string just before it is being used as a link.

echo "http://www.my site.com/form.php?companyname=".urlencode($company_name);

Then, to use this value in form.php ...

$company_name = urldecode($_GET['companyname']);

hammerslane

🙂 thanks guys!

i solved the problem, although i didn't end up needing the

$company_name = urldecode($_GET['companyname']);

in form.php to decode the url... strange: but good.

cheers.