Disable HTML URL encoding for GET parameter for query

Question

I'm currently developing a table layout. The tables are using a paginator and a filter function in PHP.

All values are transmitted as GET parameters.

For example, the paginator will use &limit=20&page=5. The filter is built upon a table row in thead as input fields. What I mean is that each column has it's own input field.

Once the submit button is clicked, it will pass the data via GET to itself, so the next pageview will query/filter the data correctly.

For example, if I want to filter the postcode the url will be as following: &limit=20&page=5&postcode=5

Because I'm allowing searches like %5% to show all postcodes where 5 where the result is not limited to 5 only. It will show all data which has a 5 at any spot of the value.

However, if I want to filter the postcodes showing all results with 58, I will type in %58%. As per URL encoding, unfortunately, the URL won't be &postcode=%58% as expected. It will be &postcode=X%.

The question is whether it is somehow possible to get the correct values into the URL?

The problem lays on browser level. If I would change the URL from &postcode=X% to &postcode=%58% directly and hit enter, Chrome would translate it straight away to X%.

Maybe it's possible somehow with meta tags, http headers, or Javascript, etc.

I'm doing it via GET instead of POST because it was - apparently - simpler to integrate with the paginator.

Sorry for my bad English. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Apologise, I've should have said I'm using MySQL. Perfect, that's how I'm doing it now. Thanks for your reply! — Dusty48
– Dusty48, Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 5:27

rickdenhaan · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-18 21:44:56Z

2

You should escape the "%" sign itself (that would be "%25"). PHP should be smart enough to decode that automatically.

So &postcode=%58% should become &postcode=%2558%25, which PHP will decode so that $_GET['postcode'] is '%58%'.

answered Oct 18, 2017 at 21:44

rickdenhaan

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Dusty48 Over a year ago

Thanks for your reply, it's a good suggestion. However, I am using the solution mentioned as a comment on my question from billrichards.

refeniz · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-20 16:06:09Z

1

You should urlencode your values before inserting them into the params.

Overall though, If you are using mysql I agree with billrichards.

edited Oct 20, 2017 at 16:06

answered Oct 18, 2017 at 22:53

refeniz

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Dusty48 Over a year ago

Thanks for your reply, it's a good suggestion. However, I am using the solution mentioned as a comment on my question from billrichards

billrichards · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-20 14:38:16Z

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Since you mention %% searches I assume you are using MySQL or another SQL back end to query for the data. In that case I would suggest leaving the querystring always formatted as postcode=58&page=1, and add some other parameter to indicate if it should be a %wildcard% search or exact match, and if the wildcard parameter is there, add the %% on the back end when performing the query.

answered Oct 20, 2017 at 14:38

billrichards

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1 Comment

Dusty48 Over a year ago

that's the solution I've followed. However, the other answers may provide a correct way to solve it too.

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