Manipulate a url string by adding GET parameters

Question

I want to add GET parameters to URLs that may and may not contain GET parameters without repeating ? or &.

Example:

If I want to add category=action

$url="http://www.acme.com";
 // will add ?category=action at the end

$url="http://www.acme.com/movies?sort=popular";
 // will add &category=action at the end

If you notice I'm trying to not repeat the question mark if it's found.

The URL is just a string.

What is a reliable way to append a specific GET parameter?

Answer 1

<?php
$url1 = '/test?a=4&b=3';
$url2 = 'www.baidu.com/test?a=4&b=3&try_count=1';
$url3 = 'http://www.baidu.com/test?a=4&b=3&try_count=2';
$url4 = '/test';
function add_or_update_params($url,$key,$value){
    $a = parse_url($url);
    $query = $a['query'] ? $a['query'] : '';
    parse_str($query,$params);
    $params[$key] = $value;
    $query = http_build_query($params);
    $result = '';
    if($a['scheme']){
        $result .= $a['scheme'] . ':';
    }
    if($a['host']){
        $result .= '//' . $a['host'];
    }
    if($a['path']){
        $result .=  $a['path'];
    }
    if($query){
        $result .=  '?' . $query;
    }
    return $result;
}
echo add_or_update_params($url1,'try_count',1);
echo "\n";
echo add_or_update_params($url2,'try_count',2);
echo "\n";
echo add_or_update_params($url3,'try_count',3);
echo "\n";
echo add_or_update_params($url4,'try_count',4);
echo "\n";

Answer 2

Use strpos to detect a ?. Since ? can only appear in the URL at the beginning of a query string, you know if its there get params already exist and you need to add params using &

function addGetParamToUrl(&$url, $varName, $value)
{
    // is there already an ?
    if (strpos($url, "?"))
    {
        $url .= "&" . $varName . "=" . $value; 
    }
    else
    {
        $url .= "?" . $varName . "=" . $value;
    }
}

Answer 3

I think this is what you're looking for:

url parameters regex

Answer 4

 /**
 * @example addParamToUrl('/path/to/?find=1', array('find' => array('search', 2), 'FILTER' => 'STATUS'))
 * @example addParamToUrl('//example.com/path/to/?find=1', array('find' => array('search', 2), 'FILTER' => 'STATUS'))
 * @example addParamToUrl('https://example.com/path/to/?find=1&FILTER=Y', array('find' => array('search', 2), 'FILTER' => 'STATUS'))
 *
 * @param       $url string url
 * @param array $addParams
 *
 * @return string
 */
function addParamToUrl($url, array $addParams) {
  if (!is_array($addParams)) {
    return $url;
  }

  $info = parse_url($url);

  $query = array();

  if ($info['query']) {
    parse_str($info['query'], $query);
  }

  if (!is_array($query)) {
    $query = array();
  }

  $params = array_merge($query, $addParams);

  $result = '';

  if ($info['scheme']) {
    $result .= $info['scheme'] . ':';
  }

  if ($info['host']) {
    $result .= '//' . $info['host'];
  }

  if ($info['path']) {
    $result .= $info['path'];
  }

  if ($params) {
    $result .= '?' . http_build_query($params);
  }

  return $result;
}

Answer 5

This function overwrites an existing argument

function addToURL( $key, $value, $url) {
    $info = parse_url( $url );
    parse_str( $info['query'], $query );
    return $info['scheme'] . '://' . $info['host'] . $info['path'] . '?' . http_build_query( $query ? array_merge( $query, array($key => $value ) ) : array( $key => $value ) );
}

Answer 6

After searching for many resources/answers on this topic, I decided to code my own. Based on @TaylorOtwell's answer here, this is how I process incoming $_GET request and modify/manipulate each element.

Assuming the url is: http://domain.com/category/page.php?a=b&x=y And I want only one parameter for sorting: either ?desc=column_name or ?asc=column_name. This way, single url parameter is enough to sort and order simultaneously. So the URL will be http://domain.com/category/page.php?a=b&x=y&desc=column_name on first click of the associated table header row.

Then I have table row headings that I want to sort DESC on my first click, and ASC on the second click of the same heading. (Each first click should "ORDER BY column DESC" first) And if there is no sorting, it will sort by "date then id" by default.

You may improve it further, like you may add cleaning/filtering functions to each $_GET component but the below structure lays the foundation.

foreach ($_GET AS $KEY => $VALUE){
    if ($KEY == 'desc'){
        $SORT = $VALUE;
        $ORDER = "ORDER BY $VALUE DESC";
        $URL_ORDER = $URL_ORDER . "&asc=$VALUE";
    } elseif ($KEY == 'asc'){
        $SORT = $VALUE;
        $ORDER = "ORDER BY $VALUE ASC";
        $URL_ORDER = $URL_ORDER . "&desc=$VALUE";
    } else {
        $URL_ORDER .= "&$KEY=$VALUE";
        $URL .= "&$KEY=$VALUE";
    }
}
if (!$ORDER){$ORDER = 'ORDER BY date DESC, id DESC';}
if ($URL_ORDER){$URL_ORDER = $_SERVER[SCRIPT_URL] . '?' . trim($URL_ORDER, '&');}
if ($URL){$URL = $_SERVER[SCRIPT_URL] . '?' . trim($URL, '&');}

(You may use $_SERVER[SCRIPT_URI] for full URL beginning with http://domain.com)

Then I use resulting $ORDER I get above, in the MySQL query:

"SELECT * FROM table WHERE limiter = 'any' $ORDER";

Now the function to look at the URL if there is a previous sorting and add sorting (and ordering) parameter to URL with "?" or "&" according to the sequence:

        function sort_order ($_SORT){
            global $SORT, $URL_ORDER, $URL;
            if ($SORT == $_SORT){
                return $URL_ORDER;
            } else {
                if (strpos($URL, '?') !== false){
                    return "$URL&desc=$_SORT";
                } else {                        
                    return "$URL?desc=$_SORT";
                }
            }
        }

Finally, the table row header to use the function:

        echo "<th><a href='".sort_order('id')."'>ID</a></th>";

Summary: this will read the URL, modify each of the $_GET components and make the final URL with parameters of your choice with the correct form of usage of "?" and "&"