Question

I am trying to parse a string but what I get returned is incorrect , I am trying to extract just the question mark from doc=? and slide=?, but instead I get

doc id:&doc=9729&slide=214679&#doc=9729&slide=21

slide id:&slide=214679&#doc=9729

string :

http:/securefinder.com/ajax_query/delimiter.aspx?q=LNG&f=1.1&doc=9729&slide=214679&#doc=9729&slide=214679&

It seems it does not accept & as the delimiting character.

 <?php

    function from_to($string, $from, $to) {
        //Calculate where each substring is found inside of $string
        $pos_from = strpos($string, $from);
        $pos_to   = strpos($string, $to);


        //The function will break if $to appears before $from, throw an exception.
        if ($pos_from > $pos_to) {

        }

        return substr(
            $string,
            $pos_from, //From where the $from starts (first character of $from)
            $pos_to - $pos_from + strlen($to) //To where the $to ends. (last character of $to)
        );
    }

    $str = "http:/securefinder.com/ajax_query/delimiter.aspx?q=LNG&f=1.1&doc=9729&slide=214679&#doc=9729&slide=214679&";


         $doc_id = from_to($str, 'doc=', '&');
          $slide_id = from_to($str, 'slide=', '&');


echo 'doc id:' . $doc_id ;
echo 'slide id:'. $slide_id;



    ?>

Answer 1

Consider using prase_url() to break up the url and then use parse_str() on the query result to first break up your query by #, the results of that by &, and finally the results of that by =.

This way you don’t need to write your own parsing logic. From this you will get a nice array to manipulate instead of trying to figure out how to manipulate your string.