Stop automatic URL decoding in PHP/Drupal

Question

I am sending a custom XML data from jQuery to Drupal/PHP as follows:

$.ajax({
            type: 'POST',       
            url: this.href,

            success: function(data){ 

                alert('Form is successfully saved');


            },
            error:function(XMLHttpRequest, textStatus,  errorThrown){
                alert("Error");

            },

            data: 'myxml='+ mydata 
        });

My XML tags contains URLs, so I encode them, and before making an AJAX call, data looks somewhat like this:

mydata="<txtLinkLocation>http%3A%2F%2Fportal.cubewerx.com%2Fcubewerx%2Fcubeserv%2Fcubeserv.cgi%3FCONFIG%3Dhaiti%26SERVICE%3DWFS%26DATASTORE%3DOSM%26request%3DGetCapabilities</txtLinkLocation>";

And, in PHP I get the received data, and I store it as follows:

$receivedXML = $_POST['myxml'];

Now, contains of $receivedXML looks like this:

<txtLinkLocation>http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=OSM&request=GetCapabilities</txtLinkLocation>

My question is why URL inside this string is being been automatically decoded? Why is this happening? I do not want any automatic operation to be performed on data that is being sent through AJAX call. How to stop this behavior? I feel like I am missing some fundamental concepts here...

Jase · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-30 23:12:06Z

2

$_POST data is sent to the server in the same way as $_GET. It has to be sent urlencoded else it may break. This means that by default, PHP will decode urlencodes because it expects the data to be urlencoded.

answered Mar 30, 2011 at 23:12

Jase

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Levi Morrison · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-30 23:22:04Z

1

PHP decodes $_GET and $_REQUEST data it by default, see the note in urldecoding on auto-encoding server variables. Turns out that $_POST does too.

Solution: urlencode() your data again if you want it to be encoded.

edited Mar 30, 2011 at 23:22

answered Mar 30, 2011 at 23:15

Levi Morrison

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