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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-10T11:28:14+00:00

So in PHP I am trying to open a URL using; $raw = file_get_contents($inlink);

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So in PHP I am trying to open a URL using; 

$raw = file_get_contents($inlink);

and then I am working on the results. $inlin come from a $_GET variable. This works for most URLs but I have an issue when the URL includes the TM (™) symbol as I get a 404 error.

The URL in question is http://www.boots.com/en/Soap-Glory-Flake-Away-™-Body-Scrub-300ml_27894/

So it seems like an encoding issue. So I have tried urlencode, but this doesn’t help. I have also tried copy and past from the address bar in firefox, so that I enter 

http://www.boots.com/en/Soap-Glory-Flake-Away-%E2%84%A2-Body-Scrub-300ml_27894/

instead, but this also does not help.

Through debugging and echoing to the screen then I end up with either 

http://www.boots.com/en/Soap-Glory-Flake-Away-â„¢-Body-Scrub-300ml_27894/

or

http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boots.com%2Fen%2FSoap-Glory-Flake-Away-%E2%84%A2-Body-Scrub-300ml_27894%2F

being submitted, neither of which works.

Strange thing, is that if I hard code the link in the program then it works!

Any ideas?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You need to utf8_encode the URL (I assume it comes by in ISO-8859-1(5)/Latin1)

    Also, I assume you are utf8_decoding and validating the URL before you run the file_get_contents() – you wouldn’t want a user to make your system request an arbitrary URL from anywhere on the Internet.

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