Encode URL-encoded string into JSON with PHP

Question

I have a query string with URL-encoded symbols:

$wm_string = "LMI_MODE=1&LMI_PAYMENT_DESC=%CF%EE%E6%E5%F0%F2%E2%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%E5+Plan+Z";

I need to convert it into JSON with PHP, but json_encode returns an empty string.

Here is my code in PHP:

parse_str($wm_string, $_REQUEST);
var_dump($_REQUEST);
echo "JSON:".json_encode($_REQUEST);

Here is the result:

array(1) { ["LMI_MODE"]=> string(46) "1?LMI_PAYMENT_DESC=Пожертвование Plan Z Online" } JSON:

What should I do?

UPDATE:

The expected result is:

{ 
    "LMI_MODE":1,
    "LMI_PAYMENT_DESC":"Пожертвование Plan Z Online" 
}

UPDATE2: The encoding is windows-1251, while json_encode seems to be expecting UTF-8. Is there a way to tell json_encode which encoding it should use while parsing?

Encode the url on the javascript side instead of the php side. I use json encode a lot and regularly send urls. Never bothered to encode them first as it doesn't make sense in my use case. You could probably find a way around it as well. — danielson317
– danielson317, Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 15:08
check json_last_error(). There's no way it should fail to encode such a simple array. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 15:21
Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encodedю The form posts in Windows 1251. — Megan Caithlyn
– Megan Caithlyn, Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 15:29
Ah ok. If it's a 3rd party posting in the wrong encoding then yes you need to iconv everything. I will update my answer. — Phil
– Phil, Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 7:14

Megan Caithlyn · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-08 22:03:52Z

5

Since json_encode does work with UTF-8 only, and the text is in windows-1251, it should be converted from that encoding to UTF-8.

$wm_string = "LMI_MODE=1&LMI_PAYMENT_DESC=%CF%EE%E6%E5%F0%F2%E2%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%E5+Plan+Z+Online";
$wm_string = iconv("windows-1251", "UTF-8", $wm_string);
parse_str(urldecode($wm_string), $result);
echo "JSON:".json_encode($result, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

Output:

JSON:{"LMI_MODE":"1","LMI_PAYMENT_DESC":"Пожертвование Plan Z Online"}

edited Jul 8, 2015 at 22:03

answered Jul 8, 2015 at 19:35

Megan Caithlyn

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1 Comment

Phil Over a year ago

This is a bit confusing. Why are you saving back to the $_REQUEST variable? There is also no need to urldecode so many times.

Jlone · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-08 15:44:14Z

0

Try this:

$wm_string = "LMI_MODE=1LMI_PAYMENT_DESC=%CF%EE%E6%E5%F0%F2%E2%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%E5+Plan+Z";
$wm_string = (parse_url(urldecode($wm_string)));
$wm_string = json_encode(urlencode($wm_string['path']));
echo "JSON: " . $wm_string;

Result:

JSON: "LMI_MODE%3D1LMI_PAYMENT_DESC%3D%CF%EE%E6%E5%F0%F2%E2%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%E5+Plan+Z"

answered Jul 8, 2015 at 15:44

Jlone

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1 Comment

Megan Caithlyn Over a year ago

I think you misunderstood the question. I have added the expected result of json_encode output in my original post.

Phil · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-08 20:14:27Z

0

I know this is similar to the other two answers, but just wanted to point out that you don't need to and in fact shouldn't be using urldecode with parse_url. In a simpler approach you could parse the url string and convert the windows-1251 variable to utf8 like this.

<?php

$wm_string = "LMI_MODE=1&LMI_PAYMENT_DESC=%CF%EE%E6%E5%F0%F2%E2%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%E5+Plan+Z+Online";

//Parse the url string
parse_str($wm_string, $args);

//Convert payment description to utf8
$args['LMI_PAYMENT_DESC'] = iconv("windows-1251", "UTF-8", $args['LMI_PAYMENT_DESC']);

echo "JSON: " . json_encode($args, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

//JSON: {"LMI_MODE":"1","LMI_PAYMENT_DESC":"Пожертвование Plan Z Online"}

answered Jul 8, 2015 at 20:14

Phil

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2 Comments

Megan Caithlyn Over a year ago

What if there was another variable needing conversion? Then should we iconv it as well? Originally I didn't know what to expect to see in $_POST and tried to save it to a file via json_encode. That turned out to be a very bad idea and I should've used var_export instead, but this is another story.

Phil Over a year ago

Are you reading from $_POST? So is your $wm_string variable just for convenience to ask the question? You don't even need parse_str in that case since you're not parsing a string. But yes you could loop all items or take a look at fixing the issue at source which is probably the character encoding on your page/form.

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