Question

I want to get data using CURL but I have a problem. When I set the url like this

$url = "https://graph.facebook.com/fql?q=SELECT name FROM page"; // continues

I do not have anything returned. When I copy the browser url, this is

$url = "https://graph.facebook.com/fql?q=SELECT%20name%20FROM%20page";

I get the results through CURL. I tried htmlentities and htmlspecialchars without luck.

What am I missing here?

  $ch = curl_init($url);
  curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
  $content = curl_exec($ch);

Answer 1

you would use urlencode($string); in the curl_init(); or call the urlencode before and set it to a variable like so:

example:

<?php
$url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/fql?q=';
$query = "SELECT name FROM page WHERE page_id in(SELECT page_id, type FROM page_admin WHERE uid = me() AND type != 'APPLICATION' )&access_token=". $facebook->getAccessToken();
$ch = curl_init(urlencode($query));
$ch = $url.$ch;
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
$content = curl_exec($ch);

php documentation: http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php

---

incorrect usage of: htmlspecialchars() and htmlentities()

htmlspecialchars() is used to strip characters and sanitize data in the URI string. use urldecode to decode the %20’s and such into their proper strings.

Conversely use urlencode($string); to convert spaces, slashes, ampersands and other elements into their respective URL friendly counterpart.