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    parse_str

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    parse_str — Überträgt einen String in Variablen

    Beschreibung

    parse_str(string $string, array &$result): void

    Verarbeitet string, als ob er der Query-String einer URL-Übergabe via GET wäre, und erstellt Variablen im aktuellen Geltungsbereich (oder im Array, wenn der Parameter result übergeben wurde).

    Parameter-Liste

    string

    Die Eingabezeichenkette.

    result

    Ist der zweite Parameter arr angegeben, werden die Variablen in diesem Array als dessen Elemente gespeichert.

    Warnung

    Diese Funktion ohne den zweiten Parameter zu verwenden wird von PHP 7.2 an MISSBILLIGT und es wird dringend davon ABGERATEN. Von PHP 8.0.0 an ist der Parameter result zwingend erforderlich.

    Rückgabewerte

    Es wird kein Wert zurückgegeben.

    Changelog

    Version Beschreibung
    8.0.0 result ist nicht mehr optional.
    7.2.0 Die Verwendung von parse_str() ohne den zweiten Parameter erzeugt nun einen E_DEPRECATED-Fehler.

    Beispiele

    Beispiel #1 Der Gebrauch von parse_str()

    <?php
    $str     = "erstes=wert&arr[]=foo+bar&arr[]=baz";

    // Empfohlen
    parse_str($str, $output);
    echo     $output['erstes']; // value
    echo $output['arr'][0]; // foo bar
    echo $output['arr'][1]; // baz

    // NICHT EMPFOHLEN
    parse_str($str);
    echo     $erstes; // value
    echo $arr[0]; // foo bar
    echo $arr[1]; // baz
    ?>

    Weil PHP-Variablen keine Punkte oder Leerzeichen im Namen enthalten dürfen, werden diese in Unterstriche umgewandelt. Dasselbe gilt für die entsprechenden Schlüsselnamen, für den Fall, dass diese Funktion mit dem Parameter result verwendet wird.

    Beispiel #2 parse_str()-Namens-Manipulation

    <?php
    parse_str    ("Mein Wert=Etwas");
    echo     $Mein_Wert; // Etwas

    parse_str("Mein Wert=Etwas", $output);
    echo     $output['Mein_Wert']; // Etwas
    ?>

    Anmerkungen

    Hinweis:

    Alle erzeugten Variablen (oder Werte, die im Array zurückgegeben werden, wenn der zweite Parameter übergeben wurde) wurden bereits mit urldecode() vorbereitet.

    Hinweis:

    Um auf den aktuellen QUERY_STRING zuzugreifen, kann die Variable $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] verwendet werden. Weitere Informationen finden sich auch im Abschnitt Variablen aus externen Quellen.

    Siehe auch

    Found A Problem?

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    User Contributed Notes 31 notes

    up
    121
    Evan K
    17 years ago
    It bears mentioning that the parse_str builtin does NOT process a query string in the CGI standard way, when it comes to duplicate fields. If multiple fields of the same name exist in a query string, every other web processing language would read them into an array, but PHP silently overwrites them:

    <?php
    # silently fails to handle multiple values
    parse_str('foo=1&foo=2&foo=3');

    # the above produces:
    $foo = array('foo' => '3');
    ?>

    Instead, PHP uses a non-standards compliant practice of including brackets in fieldnames to achieve the same effect.

    <?php
    # bizarre php-specific behavior
    parse_str('foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3');

    # the above produces:
    $foo = array('foo' => array('1', '2', '3') );
    ?>

    This can be confusing for anyone who's used to the CGI standard, so keep it in mind. As an alternative, I use a "proper" querystring parser function:

    <?php
    function proper_parse_str($str) {
    # result array
    $arr = array();

    # split on outer delimiter
    $pairs = explode('&', $str);

    # loop through each pair
    foreach ($pairs as $i) {
    # split into name and value
    list($name,$value) = explode('=', $i, 2);

    # if name already exists
    if( isset($arr[$name]) ) {
    # stick multiple values into an array
    if( is_array($arr[$name]) ) {
    $arr[$name][] = $value;
    }
    else {
    $arr[$name] = array($arr[$name], $value);
    }
    }
    # otherwise, simply stick it in a scalar
    else {
    $arr[$name] = $value;
    }
    }

    # return result array
    return $arr;
    }

    $query = proper_parse_str($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);
    ?>
    up
    6
    Roemer Lievaart
    2 years ago
    If you need the key names preserved and don't want spaces or . or unmatched [ or ] replaced by an underscore, yet you want all the other goodies of parse_str(), like turning matched [] into array elements, you can use this code as a base for that.

    <?php
    const periodPlaceholder = 'QQleQPunT';
    const     spacePlaceholder = 'QQleQSpaTIE';

    function     parse_str_clean($querystr): array {
    // without the converting of spaces and dots etc to underscores.
    $qquerystr = str_ireplace(['.','%2E','+',' ','%20'], [periodPlaceholder,periodPlaceholder,spacePlaceholder,spacePlaceholder,spacePlaceholder], $querystr);
    $arr = null ; parse_str($qquerystr, $arr);

    sanitizeKeys($arr, $querystr);
    return     $arr;
    }

    function     sanitizeKeys(&$arr, $querystr) {
    foreach(    $arr as $key=>$val) {
    // restore values to original
    $newval = $val ;
    if (     is_string($val)) {
    $newval = str_replace([periodPlaceholder,spacePlaceholder], ["."," "], $val);
    }

    $newkey = str_replace([periodPlaceholder,spacePlaceholder], ["."," "], $key);

    if (     str_contains($newkey, '_') ) {

    // periode of space or [ or ] converted to _. Restore with querystring
    $regex = '/&('.str_replace('_', '[ \.\[\]]', preg_quote($newkey, '/')).')=/';
    $matches = null ;
    if (     preg_match_all($regex, "&".urldecode($querystr), $matches) ) {

    if (     count(array_unique($matches[1])) === 1 && $key != $matches[1][0] ) {
    $newkey = $matches[1][0] ;
    }
    }
    }
    if (     $newkey != $key ) {
    unset(    $arr[$key]);
    $arr[$newkey] = $newval ;
    } elseif(     $val != $newval )
    $arr[$key] = $newval;

    if (     is_array($val)) {
    sanitizeKeys($arr[$newkey], $querystr);
    }
    }
    }

    ?>

    For example:

    parse_str_clean("code.1=printr%28hahaha&code 1=448044&test.mijn%5B%5D%5B2%5D=test%20Roemer&test%5Bmijn=test%202e%20Roemer");

    Produces:

    array(4) {
    ["code.1"]=>
    string(13) "printr(hahaha"
    ["code 1"]=>
    string(6) "448044"
    ["test.mijn"]=>
    array(1) {
    [0]=>
    array(1) {
    [2]=>
    string(11) "test Roemer"
    }
    }
    ["test[mijn"]=>
    string(14) "test 2e Roemer"
    }

    Whereas if you feed the same querystring to parse_str, you will get

    array(2) {
    ["code_1"]=>
    string(6) "448044"
    ["test_mijn"]=>
    string(14) "test 2e Roemer"
    }
    up
    35
    shagshag
    12 years ago
    That's not says in the description but max_input_vars directive affects this function. If there are more input variables on the string than specified by this directive, an E_WARNING is issued, and further input variables are truncated from the request.
    up
    16
    zweibieren at yahoo dot com
    9 years ago
    If the arr argument is provided, all its existing elements are removed.
    up
    17
    alxcube at gmail dot com
    8 years ago
    if you need custom arg separator, you can use this function. it returns parsed query as associative array.

    <?php

    /**
    * Parses http query string into an array
    *
    * @author Alxcube <alxcube@gmail.com>
    *
    * @param string $queryString String to parse
    * @param string $argSeparator Query arguments separator
    * @param integer $decType Decoding type
    * @return array
    */
    function http_parse_query($queryString, $argSeparator = '&', $decType = PHP_QUERY_RFC1738) {
    $result = array();
    $parts = explode($argSeparator, $queryString);

    foreach (    $parts as $part) {
    list(    $paramName, $paramValue) = explode('=', $part, 2);

    switch (    $decType) {
    case     PHP_QUERY_RFC3986:
    $paramName = rawurldecode($paramName);
    $paramValue = rawurldecode($paramValue);
    break;

    case     PHP_QUERY_RFC1738:
    default:
    $paramName = urldecode($paramName);
    $paramValue = urldecode($paramValue);
    break;
    }


    if (    preg_match_all('/\[([^\]]*)\]/m', $paramName, $matches)) {
    $paramName = substr($paramName, 0, strpos($paramName, '['));
    $keys = array_merge(array($paramName), $matches[1]);
    } else {
    $keys = array($paramName);
    }

    $target = &$result;

    foreach (    $keys as $index) {
    if (    $index === '') {
    if (isset(    $target)) {
    if (    is_array($target)) {
    $intKeys = array_filter(array_keys($target), 'is_int');
    $index = count($intKeys) ? max($intKeys)+1 : 0;
    } else {
    $target = array($target);
    $index = 1;
    }
    } else {
    $target = array();
    $index = 0;
    }
    } elseif (isset(    $target[$index]) && !is_array($target[$index])) {
    $target[$index] = array($target[$index]);
    }

    $target = &$target[$index];
    }

    if (    is_array($target)) {
    $target[] = $paramValue;
    } else {
    $target = $paramValue;
    }
    }

    return     $result;
    }

    ?>
    up
    2
    php at voodoolabs dot net
    17 years ago
    This is probably a better solution than below. The first line makes sure the file doesn't exist then the second line directs all requests to a script. No need to output a 200 header with this method either.

    RewriteEngine On

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
    up
    5
    kent at nospam dot ioflux dot com
    19 years ago
    You may want to parse the query string into an array.

    <?php
    /**
    * Similar to parse_str. Returns false if the query string or URL is empty. Because we're not parsing to
    * variables but to array key entries, this function will handle ?[]=1&[]=2 "correctly."
    *
    * @return array Similar to the $_GET formatting that PHP does automagically.
    * @param string $url A query string or URL
    * @param boolean $qmark Find and strip out everything before the question mark in the string
    */
    function parse_query_string($url, $qmark=true)
    {
    if (    $qmark) {
    $pos = strpos($url, "?");
    if (    $pos !== false) {
    $url = substr($url, $pos + 1);
    }
    }
    if (empty(    $url))
    return     false;
    $tokens = explode("&", $url);
    $urlVars = array();
    foreach (    $tokens as $token) {
    $value = string_pair($token, "=", "");
    if (    preg_match('/^([^\[]*)(\[.*\])$/', $token, $matches)) {
    parse_query_string_array($urlVars, $matches[1], $matches[2], $value);
    } else {
    $urlVars[urldecode($token)] = urldecode($value);
    }
    }
    return     $urlVars;
    }

    /**
    * Utility function for parse_query_string. Given a result array, a starting key, and a set of keys formatted like "[a][b][c]"
    * and the final value, updates the result array with the correct PHP array keys.
    *
    * @return void
    * @param array $result A result array to populate from the query string
    * @param string $k The starting key to populate in $result
    * @param string $arrayKeys The key list to parse in the form "[][a][what%20ever]"
    * @param string $value The value to place at the destination array key
    */
    function parse_query_string_array(&$result, $k, $arrayKeys, $value)
    {
    if (!    preg_match_all('/\[([^\]]*)\]/', $arrayKeys, $matches))
    return     $value;
    if (!isset(    $result[$k])) {
    $result[urldecode($k)] = array();
    }
    $temp =& $result[$k];
    $last = urldecode(array_pop($matches[1]));
    foreach (    $matches[1] as $k) {
    $k = urldecode($k);
    if (    $k === "") {
    $temp[] = array();
    $temp =& $temp[count($temp)-1];
    } else if (!isset(    $temp[$k])) {
    $temp[$k] = array();
    $temp =& $temp[$k];
    }
    }
    if (    $last === "") {
    $temp[] = $value;
    } else {
    $temp[urldecode($last)] = $value;
    }
    }

    /**
    * Breaks a string into a pair for a common parsing function.
    *
    * The string passed in is truncated to the left half of the string pair, if any, and the right half, if anything, is returned.
    *
    * An example of using this would be:
    * <code>
    * $path = "Account.Balance";
    * $field = string_pair($path);
    *
    * $path is "Account"
    * $field is "Balance"
    *
    * $path = "Account";
    * $field = string_pair($path);
    *
    * $path is "Account"
    * $field is false
    * </code>
    *
    * @return string The "right" portion of the string is returned if the delimiter is found.
    * @param string $a A string to break into a pair. The "left" portion of the string is returned here if the delimiter is found.
    * @param string $delim The characters used to delimit a string pair
    * @param mixed $default The value to return if the delimiter is not found in the string
    * @desc
    */
    function string_pair(&$a, $delim='.', $default=false)
    {
    $n = strpos($a, $delim);
    if (    $n === false)
    return     $default;
    $result = substr($a, $n+strlen($delim));
    $a = substr($a, 0, $n);
    return     $result;
    }

    ?>
    up
    13
    Olivier Mengué
    18 years ago
    Vladimir: the function is OK in how it deals with &amp;.
    &amp; must only be used when outputing URLs in HTML/XML data.
    You should ask yourself why you have &amp; in your URL when you give it to parse_str.
    up
    8
    Tore Bj?lseth
    19 years ago
    As of PHP 5, you can do the exact opposite with http_build_query(). Just remember to use the optional array output parameter.

    This is a very useful combination if you want to re-use a search string url, but also slightly modify it:

    Example:
    <?
    $url1 = "action=search&interest[]=sports&interest[]=music&sort=id";
    $str = parse_str($url1, $output);

    // Modifying criteria:
    $output['sort'] = "interest";

    $url2 = http_build_query($output);

    echo "<br>url1: ".$url1;
    echo "<br>url2: ".$url2;
    ?>

    Results in:
    url1: action=search&interest[]=sports&interest[]=music&sort=id
    url2: action=search&interest[0]=sports&interest[1]=music&sort=interest

    (Array indexes are automatically created.)
    up
    4
    tobsn at php dot net
    16 years ago
    just a heads up with the example above:
    ?var[]=123 - the [] has to be urlencoded.
    var names and var values - both have to be urlencoded!
    up
    3
    avi at amarcus dot com
    19 years ago
    If you are trying to preserve a complex array, the function serialize might be better than http_build_query or other methods of making a query string.
    up
    4
    helpmepro1 at gmail dot com
    16 years ago
    <?
    //by shimon doodkin

    $url_form=url_to_form($url);
    echo '<form action="'.$url_form['action'].'" method="get">';
    echo $url_form['hidden'];
    echo '<input name="otherfiled" type="text">';
    echo '<input type="submit">';
    echo '</form>';

    function url_to_form($url)
    {
    $url=split('\?',$url,2);
    $action=$url[0];
    $hidden="";
    if(isset($url[1]))
    {
    $pairs=split('&',$url[1]);
    foreach($pairs as $pair)
    {
    $pair=split('=',$pair,2);
    $name=$pair[0];
    if(isset($pair[1]))
    $value=$pair[1];
    else
    $value='';
    $name=$name;
    $value=htmlspecialchars($value);
    if($name!='')
    $hidden.='<hidden name="'.$name.'" value="'.$value.'">';
    }
    }
    return array('action'=>$action,'hidden'=>$hidden);
    }

    ?>
    up
    2
    jgbreezer at gmail dot com
    17 years ago
    Vladimir Kornea wrote on 8 Sep 2006:
    "This function is confused by ampersands (&) being encoded as HTML entities (&amp;)"

    Well, it would be - it's not supposed to be passed html entities, that's a different encoding scheme. This function does correctly decode url encoded params for you though (with the rawurlencode rather than urlencode, ie '+' is translated to a space).
    up
    5
    jrgns at jadeit dot co dot za
    12 years ago
    The array to be populated does not need to be defined before calling the function:

    <?php
    error_reporting    (E_ALL | E_STRICT);
    parse_str('var=value', $array);
    ?>

    This will not produce a notice.
    up
    3
    PEPE_RIVAS at repixel dot net
    18 years ago
    CONVERT ANY FORMATTED STRING INTO VARIABLES

    I developed a online payment solution for credit cards using a merchant, and this merchant returns me an answer of the state of the transaction like this:

    estado=1,txnid=5555444-8454445-4455554,monto=100.00

    to have all that data into variables could be fine for me! so i use str_replace(), the problem is this function recognizes each group of variables with the & character... and i have comma separated values... so i replace comma with &

    <?php
    $string     = "estado=1,txnid=5555444-8454445-4455554,monto=100.00";
    $string = str_replace(",","&",$string);
    parse_str($string);
    echo     $monto; // outputs 100.00
    ?>
    up
    2
    StanE
    9 years ago
    Note that the characters "." and " " (empty space) will be converted to "_". The characters "[" and "]" have special meaning: They represent arrays but there seems to be some weird behaviour, which I don't really understand:

    <?php
    // Note: "[" = %5B, "]" = %5D

    /*
    "v][=a" produces ("[" gets replaced by "_"):
    Array
    (
    [v]_] => a
    )
    */
    parse_str("v%5D%5B=a", $r);
    print_r($r);

    /*
    "v][[=a" produces (first "[" gets replaced by "_", but not all following):
    Array
    (
    [v]_[] => a
    )
    */
    parse_str("v%5D%5B%5B=a", $r);
    print_r($r);

    ?>
    up
    2
    mike dot coley at inbox dot com
    17 years ago
    Here is a little function that does the opposite of the parse_str function. It will take an array and build a query string from it.

    <?php

    /* Converts an array of parameters into a query string to be appended to a URL.
    *
    * @return string : Query string to append to a URL.
    * @param array $array : Array of parameters to append to the query string.
    * @param string $parent : This should be left blank (it is used internally by the function).
    */
    function append_params($array, $parent='')
    {
    $params = array();
    foreach (    $array as $k => $v)
    {
    if (    is_array($v))
    $params[] = append_params($v, (empty($parent) ? urlencode($k) : $parent . '[' . urlencode($k) . ']'));
    else
    $params[] = (!empty($parent) ? $parent . '[' . urlencode($k) . ']' : urlencode($k)) . '=' . urlencode($v);
    }

    $sessid = session_id();
    if (!empty(    $parent) || empty($sessid))
    return     implode('&', $params);

    // Append the session ID to the query string if we have to.
    $sessname = session_name();
    if (    ini_get('session.use_cookies'))
    {
    if (!    ini_get('session.use_only_cookies') && (!isset($_COOKIE[$sessname]) || ($_COOKIE[$sessname] != $sessid)))
    $params[] = $sessname . '=' . urlencode($sessid);
    }
    elseif (!    ini_get('session.use_only_cookies'))
    $params[] = $sessname . '=' . urlencode($sessid);

    return     implode('&', $params);
    }

    ?>

    Note that the function will also append the session ID to the query string if it needs to be.
    up
    2
    chris at mcfadyen dot ca
    17 years ago
    I shouldn't've posted the original version, as it only worked with the most basic of query strings.

    This function will parse an html-safe query-like url string for variables and php-like ordered and associative arrays. It places them into the global scope as parse_str does and adds minimal slashes for database insertions without the triple-slash problems that magic quotes can produce (the reason I had to write it in the first place). If you don't need the slashes, they're easy enough to remove.

    <?php
    function parse_query($str) {

    // Separate all name-value pairs
    $pairs = explode('&', $str);

    foreach(    $pairs as $pair) {

    // Pull out the names and the values
    list($name, $value) = explode('=', $pair, 2);

    // Decode the variable name and look for arrays
    list($name, $index) = split('[][]', urldecode($name));

    // Arrays
    if(isset($index)) {

    // Declare or add to the global array defined by $name
    global $$name;
    if(!isset($    $name)) $$name = array();

    // Associative array
    if($index != "") {
    ${    $name}[$index] = addslashes(urldecode($value));

    // Ordered array
    } else {
    array_push($$name, addslashes(urldecode($value)));
    }

    // Variables
    } else {

    // Declare or overwrite the global variable defined by $name
    global $$name;
    $    $name = addslashes(urldecode($value));
    }
    }
    }
    ?>
    up
    1
    chris at mcfadyen dot ca
    17 years ago
    If you wish a version of parse_str sans magic quotes, the following will do the trick:

    <?php
    function parse_query($str) {
    $pairs = explode('&', $str);

    foreach(    $pairs as $pair) {
    list(    $name, $value) = explode('=', $pair, 2);
    global $    $name;
    $    $name = $value;
    }
    }
    ?>
    up
    1
    mortoray at ecircle-ag dot com
    19 years ago
    In Kent's solution you may wish to switch "urldecode" into "rawurldecode" if you'd like to get rid of the [annoying] plus '+' converted to space ' ' translation.
    up
    0
    kawewong at gmail dot com
    3 years ago
    Warning: `parse_str()` can cause "Input variables exceeded 1000" error (1000 is default php.ini setting for `max_input_vars`).

    Test code.

    <?php

    $inputString     = 'first=firstvalue';

    for (    $i = 1; $i <= 1100; $i++) {
    $inputString .= '&arrLoopNumber[]=' . $i;
    }
    unset(    $i);

    echo     'input string: <code>' . $inputString . '</code><br>' . PHP_EOL;
    echo     '<h5>doing <code>parse_str()</code></h5>' . PHP_EOL;

    $output = [];
    parse_str($inputString, $output);
    // errors!!
    ?>
    up
    1
    twiddly
    6 years ago
    proper_parse_str works great and I like that it doesn't replace spaces with underbars, but should urldecode $value
    up
    -1
    Will Voelcker
    14 years ago
    If you need a function that does something similar to parse_str, but doesn't convert spaces and dots to underscores, try something like the following:

    <?php
    function parseQueryString($str) {
    $op = array();
    $pairs = explode("&", $str);
    foreach (    $pairs as $pair) {
    list(    $k, $v) = array_map("urldecode", explode("=", $pair));
    $op[$k] = $v;
    }
    return     $op;
    }
    ?>

    It may need adapting to handle various edge cases.
    up
    -1
    motin at demomusic dot nu
    18 years ago
    When you have scripts run through the command-line (like locally via cron), you might want to be able to use _GET and _POST vars. Put this in top of your scheduled task files:

    <?
    parse_str ($_SERVER['argv'][1], $GLOBALS['_GET']);
    parse_str ($_SERVER['argv'][2], $GLOBALS['_POST']);
    ?>

    And call your script by:

    /usr/local/bin/php /path/to/script.php "id=45&action=delete" "formsubmitted=true"

    Cheers!
    up
    -1
    Michal Zalewski
    17 years ago
    Vladimir Kornea:
    Try use html_entity_decode()

    $str = 'first=value&amp;arr[]=foo+bar&amp;arr[]=baz';
    parse_str(html_entity_decode($str), $output);
    print_r($output);

    Array
    (
    [first] => value
    [arr] => Array
    (
    [0] => foo bar
    [1] => baz
    )

    )
    up
    -1
    lenix.de
    17 years ago
    if you would like to get a nice url scheme with php/apache and and want to handle all requests in a central php script there's a simple solution/hack:

    create a .htaccess in your "basedir" where you've got your main script (in this example index.php) containing some lines like:

    "ErrorDocument 404 /index.php"

    inside index.php you can now do

    <?php
    $virtual_path     = substr(
    $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],
    strlen( dirname( $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ) ) + 1
    );
    if( (    $pos = strpos( $virtual_path, '?' )) !== false ) {
    parse_str( substr( $virtual_path, $pos + 1 ), $_GET );
    $_REQUEST = array_merge( $_REQUEST, $_GET );
    $virtual_path = substr( $virtual_path, 0, $pos );
    }

    // some code checking for a valid location, etc...
    header( 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK' );
    header( 'Content-Type: text/plain' );

    echo     $virtual_path."\n\n";
    print_r( $_REQUEST );
    ?>

    // guido 'lenix' boehm
    up
    -1
    kerosuppi
    19 years ago
    This does not work as expected.

    <?php
    class someclass
    {
    var     $query_string;
    function     someclass($a_query_string)
    {
    $this->query_string = $a_query_string;
    parse_str($this->query_string);
    }
    function     output()
    {
    echo     $this->action;
    }
    }

    $a_class = new someclass("action=go");
    $a_class->output();
    ?>

    Use this instead.

    <?php
    class someclass
    {
    var     $arr;
    function     someclass($a_query_string)
    {
    parse_str($a_query_string, $this->arr);
    }
    function     output()
    {
    echo     $this->arr['action'];
    }
    }

    $a_class = new someclass("action=go");
    $a_class->output();
    ?>
    up
    -1
    markc
    11 years ago
    Beware using parse_str in a function that has vars passed by reference. It seems that parse_str actually creates new vars even if vars of the same name exist. If you pass by ref vars of the same name as those in a query string being parsed new LOCAL vers will be created and you won't get any values passed back to the caller (relates to what Maikel mentioned below)

    An unrealistic example (vaguely related to what I was doing when I found this out)...

    function get_title($query,&$title)
    {
    parse_str($query);
    $title=str_replace("_"," ",$title);
    }

    $title="foo";
    $query = "context=something&title=Title_of_Something";
    get_title($query,$title);

    echo $title .... "foo"
    up
    -3
    Vladimir Kornea
    17 years ago
    parse_str() is confused by ampersands (&) being encoded as HTML entities (&amp;). This is relevant if you're extracting your query string from an HTML page (scraping). The solution is to run the string through html_entity_decode() before running it through parse_str().

    (Editors: my original comment was a caution whose solution is obvious, but it has resulted in three replies ("so what?" "as intended" and "this is how to fix it"). Please remove the previous four posts dealing with this (69529, 70234, 72745, 74818) and leave just the above summary. This issue is too trivial to warrant the number of comments it has received.)
    up
    -2
    anatilmizun at gmail dot com
    20 years ago
    I wrote a pair of functions using parse_str() that will write values in an array to a textfile and vice versa, read those values from the textfile back into the array. Quite useful if you need to store lots of data but don't have access to SQL.

    Save the array by calling cfg_save($filename,$array) and load it back using $array=cfg_load($filename)

    <?php
    $newline    ="?";

    function     cfg_load($cfgfile){
    global     $newline;
    $setting="";
    if(    file_exists($cfgfile)){
    $setting=fopen($cfgfile, "r");
    $ookk="";
    while(    $ook=fgets($setting)){
    #strip comment
    $commt=strpos($ook,"##");
    if(    $commt!==false) $ook=substr($ook,0,$commt);
    #append
    if($ook!="") $ookk=$ookk."&". str_replace($newline,"\n",str_replace("&","%26",trim($ook)));
    }
    fclose($setting);
    parse_str($ookk, $setting);
    }
    return     $setting;
    }

    function     cfg_save($cfgfile,$setting){
    global     $intArray;
    $intArray="";
    for(    $i=0;$i<2000;$i++)
    $intArray[]=$i;
    if(    is_array($setting)){
    $allkeys=array_keys($setting);
    foreach(    $allkeys as $aKey)
    cfg_recurse($setting[$aKey], $aKey, $outArray);
    }
    $cfgf=fopen($cfgfile,"w");
    foreach(    $outArray as $aLine)
    fputs($cfgf,stripslashes($aLine)."\r\n");
    fclose($cfgf);
    }

    function     cfg_recurse($stuffIn, $keysofar, &$toAppend){
    global     $intArray, $newline;
    if(    is_array($stuffIn)){
    $allkeys=array_keys($stuffIn);
    if(    array_slice($intArray,0,sizeof($allkeys))==$allkeys)
    $nokey=true;
    else
    $nokey=false;
    foreach(    $allkeys as $aKey){
    if(!    $nokey) $toKey=$aKey;
    cfg_recurse($stuffIn[$aKey], $keysofar."[".$toKey."]", $toAppend);
    }
    }else
    $toAppend[]=$keysofar."=".str_replace("\n",$newline,$stuffIn);
    }
    ?>

    Note that these functions support nested arrays of unlimited levels ;)
    up
    -4
    Benjamin Garcia
    12 years ago
    function like parse_str, but doesn't convert spaces and dots to underscores in $_GET AND $_POST

    /**
    * GET and POST input containing dots, etc.
    */
    function getRealREQUEST() {
    $vars = array();

    $input = $_SERVER['REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING'];
    if(!empty($input)){
    $pairs = explode("&", $input);
    foreach ($pairs as $pair) {
    $nv = explode("=", $pair);

    $name = urldecode($nv[0]);
    $nameSanitize = preg_replace('/([^\[]*)\[.*$/','$1',$name);

    $nameMatched = str_replace('.','_',$nameSanitize);
    $nameMatched = str_replace(' ','_',$nameMatched);

    $vars[$nameSanitize] = $_REQUEST[$nameMatched];
    }
    }

    $input = file_get_contents("php://input");
    if(!empty($input)){
    $pairs = explode("&", $input);
    foreach ($pairs as $pair) {
    $nv = explode("=", $pair);

    $name = urldecode($nv[0]);
    $nameSanitize = preg_replace('/([^\[]*)\[.*$/','$1',$name);

    $nameMatched = str_replace('.','_',$nameSanitize);
    $nameMatched = str_replace(' ','_',$nameMatched);

    $vars[$nameSanitize] = $_REQUEST[$nameMatched];
    }
    }

    return $vars;
    }
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