How can I remove invalid querystring using php header location

Question

I have this invalid link hard coded in software which I cannot modify.

http://www.16start.com/results.php?cof=GALT:#FFFFFF;GL:1;DIV:#FFFFFF;FORID:1&q=search

I would like to use php header location to redirect it to a valid URL which does not contain the querystring. I'd like to pass just the parameter q=.

I've tried

$q = $_GET['q'];
header ("Location: http://www.newURL.com/results.php?" . $q . "");

But it's just passing the invalid querystring to the new location in addition to modifying it in a strange way

This is the destination location I get, which is also invalid

http://www.newURL.com/results.php?#FFFFFF;GL:1;DIV:#FFFFFF;FORID:1&q=search

Seems like the query string having a bunch of stuff before the variable is producing the odd behavior. Try using the $_SERVER array to get the query string and then substring everything after the q= — leitning
– leitning, Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 17:59
what is the syntex to capture the substring into a session variable using $_SERVER — Sammy Miri
– Sammy Miri, Commented Apr 28, 2015 at 20:46

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:14:24Z

1

That's because # is seen as the start of a fragment identifier and confuses the parser.

You can take the easy-way as Stretch suggested but you should be aware that q is the last query parameter in your URL. Therefore, it might be better to fix the URL and extract the query parameters in a safer way:

<?php
$url = "http://www.16start.com/results.php?cof=GALT:#FFFFFF;GL:1;DIV:#FFFFFF;FORID:1&q=search";

// Replace # with its HTML entity:
$url = str_replace('#', "%23", $url);

// Extract the query part from the URL
$query = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_QUERY);

// From here on you could prepend the new url
$newUrl = "http://www.newURL.com/results.php?" . $query;
var_dump($newUrl);

// Or you can even go further and convert the query part into an array
parse_str($query, $params);
var_dump($params);
?>

Output

string 'http://www.newURL.com/results.php?cof=GALT:%23FFFFFF;GL:1;DIV:%23FFFFFF;FORID:1&q=search' (length=88)

array
  'cof' => string 'GALT:#FFFFFF;GL:1;DIV:#FFFFFF;FORID:1' (length=37)
  'q' => string 'search' (length=6)

Update

After your comments, it seems that the URL is not available as a string in your script and you want to get it from the browser.

The bad news is that PHP will not receive the fragment part (everything after the #), because it is not sent to the server. You can verify this if you check the network tab in the Development tools of your browser F12.

In this case, you'll have to host a page at http://www.16start.com/results.php that contains some client-side JavaScript for parsing the fragment and redirecting the user.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:14

CommunityBot

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answered Apr 27, 2015 at 17:54

huysentruitw

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5 Comments

Sammy Miri Over a year ago

hi wouter. the q= is dynamic. so i must create a session variable from the current URL. and that isint working. str_replace simply does not parse anything after the first "#" it finds in the querystring

huysentruitw Over a year ago

I don't think I can follow. But in your question I see that you try to use $_GET so I guess the user is browsing to that incorrect URL (instead of having it as a variable in the PHP script), is this correct?

Sammy Miri Over a year ago

yes. the user browses to that url. in the landing page of that url i want to redirect him to a correct URL

huysentruitw Over a year ago

I'm afraid you can't do that server-side, because the fragment (everything after the #) is not sent to the server. You can see this if you inspect the network using f.e. Chrome Debugger. What you can do is get the hash-fragment from the client-side. So you can embed some JavaScript on that page that parses the fragment and redirects the user.

Sammy Miri Over a year ago

Hi Wouer. thanks! thats a good idea. and i wont even have to redirect if i can reformat the url beore the page loads. do you have javascript syntex for parsing and removing the invalid part of the querystirng and make it execute before the page loads?

Just Lucky Really · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-27 17:32:27Z

0

one way could be to use strstr() to get everything after (and including q=) in the string.

So:

$q=strstr($_GET['q'],'q=');

Give that a whirl

answered Apr 27, 2015 at 17:32

Just Lucky Really

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