PHP - How to pass a long unescaped string from one page to another?

Question

I would like to pass a long string to a second page. Normally I pass short strings as variables

www.example.php?var=something&var2=somethingelse

In this case tho I would like to pass a long sentence to a second page and not have to replace all the white spaces with dashes deal with commas and apostrophes.

Is there a simple way to do this that Im missing? Do I have to re-query the database?

Thanks

Answer 1

base 64 encode it, and then decode again when the other page receives the GET param

$str = "I'm an obnoxious string, meh meh"
$str = base64_encode($str);

** Echo link **

Then on the receiving page

$str = base64_decode($_GET['str']);

Answer 2

use $_SESSION array

Answer 3

Use urlencode or http_build_query. No need to decode the message then.

base64 is not an encryption, and just about every programmer can spot it and convert it. You should not relay on that as some secure method of sending message from page to page.

If you just want it to be untampered with, you can also send along a hash of the string, with a secret salt for your server.

$salt = 'longsecretconstanttexthere'; 
$url .= '?' . http_build_query(array('text' => $str, 'hash' => md5($str . $salt));

Reciveing end:

$str = $_GET['text'];
if ($_GET['hash'] !== md5($str . $salt)) {
  //not the original string
}

For a secret method, store the text in $_SESSION or db with a key. Send that key to the next page.

Answer 4

There is no problem in passing long values, that's what the urlencode() function is for:

$link = 'www.example.com?longValue=' . urlencode($arbitraryLengthString);

And you don't need to decode it manually, that's done automatically by PHP. But if it's a really long value that you intend to use on many pages, it might be better to put it into a session.

Answer 5

Depending on the length of the string in question, you may want to look at the database method, sessions or using POST to send your data instead of GET.

GET has limits and is typically is not meant to pass large amounts of data, you may end up running into situations where your string becomes truncated if it's long enough.