PHP - How to replace special characters for url

Question

I am trying to convert special characters (eg. +, /, &, %) which I will use them for a GET request. I have constructed a function for this.

function convert_text($text) {

    $t = $text;

    $specChars = array(
        ' ' => '%20',    '!' => '%21',    '"' => '%22',
        '#' => '%23',    '$' => '%24',    '%' => '%25',
        '&' => '%26',    '\'' => '%27',   '(' => '%28',
        ')' => '%29',    '*' => '%2A',    '+' => '%2B',
        ',' => '%2C',    '-' => '%2D',    '.' => '%2E',
        '/' => '%2F',    ':' => '%3A',    ';' => '%3B',
        '<' => '%3C',    '=' => '%3D',    '>' => '%3E',
        '?' => '%3F',    '@' => '%40',    '[' => '%5B',
        '\\' => '%5C',   ']' => '%5D',    '^' => '%5E',
        '_' => '%5F',    '`' => '%60',    '{' => '%7B',
        '|' => '%7C',    '}' => '%7D',    '~' => '%7E',
    );

    foreach ($specChars as $k => $v) {
        $t = str_replace($k, $v, $t);
    }

    return $t;
}

When I use some text as input for the function, I should get some%20text. But, because I do this replacement in a foreach loop, it first replaces 'space' to %20 and in the second step it replaces % character to %25. Eventually I get some%2520text.

Is there any other way or a built in function to make this substitution?

rawurlencode replaces all the

EDIT

$t = str_replace(array_keys($specChars), array_values($specChars), $text);

I have used str_replace without loop as SpongePablo suggested.

It gives the same result which I do not desire. On the other hand, if I use rawurlencode, it converts some other characters which I don't want them to be converted.

Answer 1

Wouldn't you be better off using the PHP build in functionality to do this: rawurlencode?

Answer 2

Do not use a loop.

Use str_replace

str_replace($entities, $replacements, $string);

Or better use this native PHP function rawurlencode

Answer 3

There's already a function for this in the standard PHP library: rawurlencode.

Answer 4

function convert_text($text) {

$t = $text;

$specChars = array(
    '!' => '%21',    '"' => '%22',
    '#' => '%23',    '$' => '%24',    '%' => '%25',
    '&' => '%26',    '\'' => '%27',   '(' => '%28',
    ')' => '%29',    '*' => '%2A',    '+' => '%2B',
    ',' => '%2C',    '-' => '%2D',    '.' => '%2E',
    '/' => '%2F',    ':' => '%3A',    ';' => '%3B',
    '<' => '%3C',    '=' => '%3D',    '>' => '%3E',
    '?' => '%3F',    '@' => '%40',    '[' => '%5B',
    '\\' => '%5C',   ']' => '%5D',    '^' => '%5E',
    '_' => '%5F',    '`' => '%60',    '{' => '%7B',
    '|' => '%7C',    '}' => '%7D',    '~' => '%7E',
    ',' => '%E2%80%9A',  ' ' => '%20'
);

foreach ($specChars as $k => $v) {
    $t = str_replace($k, $v, $t);
}

return $t;
}

place the key and value in the last so that the last iteration of loop will be for spaces

other than that you can use

urlencode - built in function from php

Answer 5

You can use rawurlencode($url) builtin function.

<?php
$url='http://fb.com';
echo rawurlencode($url);

the output:

http%3A%2F%2Ffb.com