Question

I am trying to pass a string that already contains quotation marks from one php file to another via a hyperlink and the GET method.

I am retrieving thousands of lines which contain quotation marks in a while loop and saving the output to a variable as follows:

while ($trouble_row = mysql_fetch_array($trouble_result)) {
  $ticketid = $trouble_row['ticketid'];
  $ticketno = $trouble_row['ticket_no'];                        
  $created = $trouble_row['createdtime'];
  $modified = $trouble_row['modifiedtime'];
  $title = $trouble_row['title'];
  $solution = $trouble_row['solution'];
  $hoursattended = $trouble_row['cf_629'];
  $hoursbilled = $trouble_row['cf_628'];
  $csv .= "$firstname $lastname,$ticketno,$created,$modified,$hoursattended,$hoursbilled,$title,$solution\n";
  }

The variable $title sometimes contains an entry that looks like this:

The user “tom” is having problems.

The variable $csv is collecting all the results from each pass and creating a CSV formatted string that I then need to pass to a new php script, which I am trying to do using a hyperlink:

a href="export_csv.php?csv=$csv">Export to CSV</a>

Unfortunately the embedded quotation marks are recognized by the hyperlink and cut off the majority of the output. Any suggestions on how to collect the data differently, store it differently, or pass it differently would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

For parameters in links, you need to use urlencode():

echo '<a href="export_csv.php?csv='.urlencode($csv).'">Export to CSV</a>';

note however that GET requests have length limits starting in the 1-2k area (depending on browser and server).

Alternative approaches:

Forms

One method that is immune to length limits is creating a <form> element for each link with method="post" and adding the values in <input type='hidden'> inputs. You would then style the submit button of the form like a link.

<form action="export_csv.php" method="post">
 <input type="hidden" name="csv" value=".......">
 <button type="submit">Click here </button> <!-- Use CSS to style -->
</form>

Sessions

Another very elegant way to pass the data would be

• Generating a random key
• Saving the CSV data in a $_SESSION variable with the random key
• Passing the random (short) key in the URL instead of the full data

You’d just have to take care of deleting unused random keys (and their data) frequently.

These kinds of links couldn’t be bookmarked, of course.