Send array in a nice-looking URL!

webclark

Hi all

I'm writing a web app that will take a number of product codes from the url, e.g.

page.php?products=A34&BB8&NG0&TR8

That's how I'd like to display the URL. Not too complex! However it would seem the only feasible way to send these things as an array is to construct the array on-the-fly, e.g.

page.php?products[]=A34&products[]=BB8&products[]=NG0&products[]=TR8

It has to be a typeable 'query url', and has to be nicer to look at than the above (client restrictions - you understand!) Can any PHP heroes help me out?

Thanks in advance

webClark

n_wattam

you can pass an array without all that mess...

index.php?data=yourarray

'yourarray' will be the array you currently have data in, and when the page loads 'data' will be the new array.

and just choose not to display all the crap in the url

laserlight

You could try:

$products = array('A34', 'BB8', 'NG0', 'TR8');
$uri_fragment = '?products=' . implode('+', $products);

The corresponding URI fragment would be:

?products=A34+BB8+NG0+TR8

EDIT:
basically, the idea is to separate by urlencoded spaces.

webclark

Laserlight, that looks good, but how would I convert that back into an array? (Reverse the process in essence?)

Thanks n_wattam, but I'm not sure your version will work for what I need - you see, I would like the typed URL to be converted by PHP into an array. (I know it's possible to pass [or should that be 'parse' 🙂 ?] arrays within PHP but these must be verbose, so they can be tracked by search engines and whatnot)...

P.S. This forum seems a great, helpful place 🙂

laserlight

how would I convert that back into an array? (Reverse the process in essence?)

Use [man]explode/man.