[RESOLVED] Replacing spaces in a string

Jon12345

I enter my data into a form on page1.php. Then I click submit and I get sent to page2.php. Page2 has the following code:

<?
include('dbconnect.inc');
mysql_query("insert into products(Product, SubProduct, MetaTitle, CategoryID, Data, Advert) values('$Product', '$SubProduct', '$MetaTitle', '$CategoryID', '$Data', '$Advert')"); 

echo $CategoryID." > ".$Product."> ".$SubProduct.": ".$SubProduct;

echo '<br><br>';
echo '<br><br>';
echo '<a href="admin.php">Back to Admin</a>';

?>

Two things I need:

I want to add in the ProductID field. But this is only generated after I click submit on page1.php. How do I get this value?

Currently, a typical output from the echo statement would be:

mysite.com/main.php?navtype=subproduct&category=Business&productname=aa&filter=

Yet at the end I should have filter=(whatever the value of ProductID is).

Any spaces in the string should be converted to whatever they would appear like in a browser. Is it %20 or something? Is there some kind of find and replace function?

Thanks,

Jon

mrhappiness

[man]mysql_insert_id[/man]
[man]url_encode[/man]

Jon12345

I don't think I can use url encode as I cannot use unencode the other end. It is for placing in a url on Google Adwords.

So is there just an easy way to replace a space with %20 (if that is the correct character)?

Weedpacket

Use url_encode(). If a URL-encoded string can't be interpreted by a URL parser whatever language it's written in or whoever wrote it then it's not a URL parser.

Jon12345

I never said I think its a URL parser. It is just a hyperlink. Normally I would cut and paste the link from my browser. But I want to auto generate in code for cutting and pasting.

laserlight

It looks like in the end some web browser is going to use it, so urlencode() or rawurlencode() should be safe to use since the web browser will interpret the string correctly.

Jon12345

I am not sure if Googles system will interpret it correctly. If it doesn't, it would take me a couple of days to update everything. So why not just do a replace on a space? It's not really something I want to argue about as it will work just as well.

laserlight

So why not just do a replace on a space?

And what would you replace a space with? If you use %20, then you're using rawurlencode().

Jon12345

Because doesn't that also replace other stuff? Maybe & or $ or ?

laserlight

Because doesn't that also replace other stuff?

Of course. But it doesnt make sense for a URL parser to have the capability of interpreting %20 as spaces and yet not be able to parse other urlencoded sequences.

If you really, really want to do it by hand, then go ahead and use [man]str_replace/man, though I still think [man]rawurlencode/man would be more appropriate.

Jon12345

Thanks. I will try that.