Easier way to fully decode this string?

Question

Instead of doing this

urldecode(urldecode(urldecode(curl_exec($ch))));

The output from curl_exec is encoded more than once, is there a way I can decode it fully with only one call to a function?

I just wrote this function and it works perfectly

function decodeSource($encodedSource){
    while($encodedSource != urldecode($encodedSource)){
        $encodedSource = urldecode($encodedSource);
    }
return $encodedSource;
}

"The output from curl_exec is encoded more than once" --- by whom? — zerkms, Jun 04 '12 at 01:57
And ... how would such a decode function know how many times to iterate its urldecode()? — ghoti, Jun 04 '12 at 01:59
I am loading a webpage using the cURL extension, curl_exec() returns the source of the webpage, and the webpage is encoded, and has \u0026, \u0026amp; as well that I would like to have decoded — CLUEL3SS, Jun 04 '12 at 02:01
That probably means that the page being fetched has `urlencode`d the content... So just remove whatever is encoding the content multiple times and it shouldn't be an issue. — ian.aldrighetti, Jun 04 '12 at 02:04
\u0026 is unicode, looks like whatever is being returned is going through something other than `urlencode`. btw, calling `urlencode` multiple times on a url has no effect, it can't encode it more. — Crisp, Jun 04 '12 at 02:27

ghoti · Answer 1 · 2012-06-04T02:27:06.077

1

What about using your own function?

function multiurldecode($url, $count=1) {
  for($i=1; $i<=$count; $i++)
    $url=urldecode($url);
  return($url);
}

This is off the top of my head, untested....

UPDATE per comment:

Not a bad idea at all! Here it is in code.

function multiurldecode($url, $count=1) {
  if ($count==0) {
    for( $last=urldecode($url); $last!=$url; $url=urldecode($url) )
      $last=$url;
  } else {
    for ($i=1; $i<=$count; $i++)
      $url=urldecode($url);
  }
  return($url);
}

Again, I haven't tested this, but it runs fine in my head. :) The idea here is that if you provide a count of zero, the for loop will keep running until the decoded URL is the same as its source.

edited Jun 04 '12 at 02:27

answered Jun 04 '12 at 02:02

ghoti

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You could add a check to see if the string is different than the decoded string... And then stop when they are the same. – Brian Adkins Jun 04 '12 at 02:05
1

Yes, but that might go too far. What if the string you *want* is the second last urlencode? I think we need more information from the OP. – ghoti Jun 04 '12 at 02:09
edited the original post with a function that I wrote, works just how I needed it too, ty all – CLUEL3SS Jun 04 '12 at 02:34

Easier way to fully decode this string?

1 Answers1