Passing & in URL variable with the help of urlencode

Question

I have done urlencode of the variable before passing to the URL

http://example.com/Restaurants?alias=F%26B

But when I try to print like in the page

 $alias =  rawurldecode($_GET['alias']);
 echo $alias;

it prints only F. How to solve this?

Answer 1

I doubt that $_GET['alias'] exists when requesting a URL with the query aliasF%26B. It’s rather $_GET['aliasF&B'] that’s getting populated.

In this case you need to use $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] to get the full query.

Answer 2

It looks like you are not using the query string "correctly." It should be in key=value pairs. I would look at using $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] to get your information instead.

Answer 3

You don't need to urlencode the pair. You only need to urlencode name and a value as such:

Wrong:

urlencode('aliasF=B')

Correct:

urlencode('aliasF') . '=' . urlencode('B')

Answer 4

AFAIK $_GET are already decoded.

See php.net

The superglobals $_GET and $_REQUEST are already decoded. Using urldecode() on an element in $_GET or $_REQUEST could have unexpected and dangerous results.