preg_replace still leaving whitespace in?

matt6805

So here's the deal:

I have a string that i've extract an ID number from. Once that number is extracted, I have to pass that number as a variable to a URL string. I got all that working, but the problem is there's some odd whitespace at the bottom of the number that is causing the URL to break.

//declare the ID
$id = "<id>5</id>";

//strip out the <id></id> tags from the source so we can pass it to the URL string
$cleanid = preg_replace("/<.+?>/","",$id);

//just to test if it worked
echo $cleanid;

# initialize a new curl session
$ch = curl_init();

// curl my Streamsend API credentials over to the app { LoginID:Key }
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "left out for security");


$headers = array(
 'Accept: application/xml',       # any data returned should be XML
    'Content-Type: application/xml'  # any data we send will be XML
    # include any additional headers here
  );

// this line below you set to point Streamsend to the correct resource that you want to effect   
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people/$cleanid/memberships.xml");
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
  # perform additional session configuration here

  //post the form results as XML to feed into the database as a subscriber
  $xml = "
  <membership>
    <list-id>2</list-id>
  </membership>
";

  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml);

  $response = curl_exec($ch);

At the point where you see echo $cleanid; , When i run this locally, I see a line break under the number '5'. I believe that this line break is what's causing my loading of the URL to fail.

here's the URL that doesn't work:
https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people/$cleanid/memberships.xml

however, if I post this URL to the API interface, it works:
https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people/5/memberships.xml
(notice the value is hard coded)

I'm lost🙁

Can anyone more skilled see what might be going on here?

Thanks,
Matt

NogDog

I cannot see anywhere that a space would get inserted. You could try a var_dump() to see for sure how many characters long it is and where anything "extra" is:

echo "<pre>";
var_dump($cleanid);
echo "</pre>\n";

Another sanity check would be to build the entire URL as a variable, then echo out (or var_dump()) that variable to see if anything "interesting" shows up, then use that variable for the URL.

matt6805

Thanks NogDog, your suggestion helped me find what I believe to be the cause of the issue. For some reason, there's an extra space in the variable value. See this example. when I write the entire string into a variable and echo it, this is what i get:

https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people/5 /memberships.xml

Notice the space after the number 5? I believe this has to do with the fact that the ID value in my code is being pulled from an array, rather then a static value. See the code below:

# initialize a new curl session
$ch = curl_init();

$email = 'oo@example.com';

// pass my Streamsend API credentials over to the app { LoginID:Key }
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "**REMOVED**");

  $headers = array(
	'Accept: application/xml',       # any data returned should be XML
    'Content-Type: application/xml'  # any data we send will be XML
    # include any additional headers here
  );

  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people.xml?email_address=$email");
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);

  //Return the results as a string return value from curl_exec() instead of the usual true/false.
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
  # perform additional session configuration here

  # execute the session and receive its response
  $xmltree = curl_exec($ch);

  //expolode the XML tree into an array
  $array = explode(" ",$xmltree);

  //just for testing purposes, to peak into the array
  //print_r($array);

  //Now we need to extract the USER ID from the user that was just added to the database. 
  list($key, $value) = $array['20'];

  //assign ID to variable
  $id = $array['20'];
  //echo "my user ID is:" .$id;

  //strip out the <id></id> tags from the source so we can pass it to the URL string
  $cleanid = preg_replace("/<.+?>/","",$id);
  //echo $cleanid;

  //And this is where the extra space in the URL reveals itself
  echo "https://app.streamsend.com/audiences/2/people/$cleanid/memberships.xml";
  //var_dump($cleanid);

I'm not certain where this space is coming from. Could it be caused from using a space as the delimiter in the explode function? I think i'm really close to getting this script working. Very happy about the progress. Thanks again for your advice!

Regards,
Matt

NogDog

Could be a newline or such, perhaps? Anyway, if it's any sort of white-space character, you should be able to fix it by changing the assignment to:

$cleanid = trim(preg_replace("/<.+?>/","",$id));

matt6805

Perfect, the trim function was the key! Thanks for your quick comments. You saved me hours of searching!

Regards,
Matt