Question

I found this solution to normalise and match equal URLs but I want to know if there is anything more elegant, doesn’t PHP have a URL normalising function?

function urlMatch($url1, $url2)
{
    // parse the urls
    $r1 = parse_url($url1);
    $r2 = parse_url($url2);

    // get the variables out of the queries
    parse_str($r1['query'], $v1);
    parse_str($r2['query'], $v2);

    // match the domains and paths
    if ($r1['host'] != $r2['host'] || $r1['path'] != $r2['path'])
        return false;

    // match the arrays
    foreach ($v1 as $key => $value)
        if (array_key_exists($key, $v2) && $value != $v2[$key])
            return false;

    // if we haven't returned already, then the queries match
    return true;
}

Answer 1

Something like this may be more suitable for your needs:

function urlMatch($url1, $url2){
  // parse the urls
  $r1 = parse_url($url1);
  $r2 = parse_url($url2);

  if (isset($r1['query'])){
    // get the variables out of the query
    parse_str($r1['query'], $v1);
    // sort arguments so they be in exactly same order
    asort($v1);
    // place sorted arguments back
    $r1['query'] = http_build_query($v1);
  }

  if (isset($r2['query'])){
    parse_str($r2['query'], $v2);
    asort($v2);
    $r2['query'] = http_build_query($v2);
  }

  // Match re-constructed urls (you'll need pecl_http extension for this)
  $matched = http_build_url($r1) === http_build_url($r2);

  return $matched;
}

Update: I’ve changed code a bit to deal with empty queries…