Question

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/users/LadyGagaVEVO/uploads?alt=json&max-results=10&format=5

I would like to extract the video thumbnail and video link using PHP and JavaScript from the url above but I’m not sure how to do it, here is my attempt so far:

$json = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/users/LadyGagaVEVO/uploads?alt=json&max-results=10&format=5';
$data = json_decode($json);
print_r($data);

Answer 1

in PHP

  $tmp = file_get_contents('http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/users/LadyGagaVEVO/uploads?alt=json&max-results=10&format=5/');
  $data = json_decode($tmp,true);

in javascript with jquery

  $.get("http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/users/LadyGagaVEVO/uploads?alt=json&max-results=10&format=5/", function(response) { 
       var data = $.parseJSON(response);
  });

about the illegal character, depends on what counts as illegal in your case, just do some string validation as you traverse through the object for the thumbnail and video link you looking for.