How to send a multidimensional array with PHP cURL without array keys from the nested arrays?

Question

Introduction

So I'm trying to send form values as a query string to an API. The API expects a query string like this:

&name=Charles+Hansen&[email protected]&locations=23433&locations=23231&propertyTypes=APARTMENT&propertyTypes=TOWNHOUSE&message=test"

As you can see there are multiple "propertyTypes" and "locations" depending on how many property types or locations the user picks in the form. Because of that I have stored all $_POST data in a multidimensional array which looks like this, since I obviously can't have multiple keys with the same name "propertyTypes" or "locations":

Array
(
    [name] => Charles Hansen
    [email] => [email protected]
    [locations] => Array
        (
            [0] => 23433
            [1] => 23231
        )
    [propertyTypes] => Array
        (
            [0] => APARTMENT
            [1] => TOWNHOUSE
        )
    [message] => test
)

cURL does not support multidimensional arrays, therefore I first build the query myself before using it. This is my cURL function:

function sg_order($post_fields) {
    if($post_fields) {
        $query = http_build_query($post_fields);

        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://example.com/order?orgKey=' . constant('ORG_KEY'));
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $query);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
          'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',                 
          'Content-Length: ' . strlen($query))
        );
        $result = curl_exec($ch);

        $status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

        if(curl_errno($ch)) {
          error_log('Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch) . $result);
        }else{
          error_log('Curl response: ' . $status);
        }
        curl_close($ch);

        return $result;
    }
}

orgKey is a required parameter for validation.

The problem

My problem is, that the query built by $query = http_build_query($post_fields); contains the keys for the nested arrays ([0], [1] etc.). The result of $query looks like this:

&name=Charles+Hansen&[email protected]&locations[0]=23433&locations[1]=23231&propertyTypes[0]=APARTMENT&propertyTypes[1]=TOWNHOUSE&message=test"

How do I get rid of the keys ([0], [1] etc.) so that the query looks exactly like what the API expects?

Additional info

I have no control over the API
I am not sending files, so a solution does not have to work with files

@YasinPatel I could try that, but as far as I know their API only accepts a URL encoded string. If I send it as json, will it automatically be converted to an URL encoded string by curl, because of the HTTPHEADER setting? — Skovsgaard
– Skovsgaard, Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 10:20
If you don’t want to write your own version of http_build_query, then I’d suggest you modify php.net/manual/en/function.http-build-query.php#111819 by replacing the matches with an empty string instead of '%5B%5D'. — 04FS
– 04FS, Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 10:23
@04FS Yea, that works! Thanks! If you make an answer i'll accept that as a solution. — Skovsgaard
– Skovsgaard, Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 11:16

04FS · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-25 11:24:50Z

3

If you don’t want to write your own version of http_build_query, then I’d suggest you modify the version from this user comment in the manual, http://php.net/manual/en/function.http-build-query.php#111819

    $query = http_build_query($query);
    $query = preg_replace('/%5B[0-9]+%5D/simU', '%5B%5D', $query);

They are replacing foo[xy] with foo[] here - since you don’t want to keep the [] either, just replace '%5B%5D' in the preg_replace call with an empty string instead.

answered Oct 25, 2019 at 11:24

04FS

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6 Comments

Skovsgaard Over a year ago

Thanks again. Bonus question: what does "simU" in that preg_replace mean?

Piskvor left the building Over a year ago

php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.modifiers.php : PCRE_DOTALL (useless here IMHO), PCRE_CASELESS (useless here IMHO), PCRE_MULTILINE (useless here IMHO), PCRE_UNGREEDY (useless here IMHO). In other words, for this specific pattern, none of the modifiers is needed

04FS Over a year ago

@Piskvor thanks, I was typing a similar response in the meantime. The only one I can see maybe making a bit of sense here is i - if http_build_query were to erratically change its behavior one day, and return lower-case hex digits in the percent encoding of the square brackets, then %5B and %5D would still match - not sure how likely that is though. The rest of them were probably just added by whoever wrote this out of habit, I guess.

Piskvor left the building Over a year ago

Would not match anyway, [0-9] is [0123456789], AFAIK these don't have a lower/upper case ;) Looks like habit, sure: which is why I have qualified it "for this specific pattern."

04FS Over a year ago

@Piskvor I was referring to the curly brackets around the number - these are URL-encoded as %5B and %5D in the return value of http_build_query, and part of the pattern. Should http_build_query decide one day to return those as %5b and %5d instead (in terms of URL-encoding, both versions are allowed), then the pattern as-is would still work with the i modifier.

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