Is there a way to represent/pass a multidimensional array like
array( array('foo' => 'bar') , array('language' => 'php'), ...);
into a GET string?
For simple arrays such as
array(1,2,3,4)
I can represent it like this
?ids=1,2,3,4
But I don't know how to represent multidimensional arrays
You use the same square bracket notation as when submitting form post data, eg
?array[][foo]=bar&array[][language]=php
$array = $_GET['array'];
There's several ways you could do it.
One way is to serialize() it and then unserialize() it on the page that reads it.
Another way is to json_encode() it and then json_decode() it on the page that reads it.
Or, in keeping with the CSV-style it sounded like you prefer, you could just delimit the next layer of the array with a different delimiter, ex.
array(
0 => array(1, 2, 3),
1 => array(4, 5, 6),
)
becomes
?array=1|2|3,4|5|6
Finally, PHP will also parse arrays in the querystring like:
?array[0][0]=1&array[0][1]=2&array[0][1]=3&array[1][0]=4&array[1][1]=5&array[1][1]=6
I don't know of any standard way to do this. You can roll your own by using a space character as a row delimiter:
array( array(1, 2, 3, 4), array(5, 6, 7) );
becomes
?ids=1,2,3,4+5,6,7
You can use this method to prevent any disambiguation:
?ids=1|2|3|4||23|34|45
its easy to implement and read.
at the reciever's end, you just need to explode the GET parameter back to an array, eg:
$par=explode($_GET[ids],"||");
or
$par=explode($_GET[ids],"|");
