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i want to create a beautiful query string from long and easily understandable query string

for example

http://www.domain.com/play.php?a=10&b=20&c=30

first of all this is vary long query string and second it is understand able that value of a,b&c.

what i want is php function which convert whole query string to a=10&b=20&c=30 to some text like f4cdret4

and then i pass same like

http://www.domain.com/play.php?q=f4cdret4

and in play.php i again convert back f4cdret4 to a=10&b=20&c=30

i am trying to find some thing like that but many days searching no success.

Thanks

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I guess domain.com/play.php?q=a10b20c30 is not an option :D – Terence Sep 13 '11 at 18:37

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

This is a BAD idea from a usability perspective. I as a user would be annoyed with you. I recommend you read about URL Design.

Also, sounds like you want to keep something from the user. If so it's not secure if you do something like

$url .= '?q=' . base64_encode(http_build_query($parms));
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up vote 1 down vote

You could use some string transformation functions to hide the real query string. Here is a simple example I came up with using bin2hex and pack

<?php
$str = 'a=10&b=5&c=20&d=6';
$encoded = bin2hex($str);
echo $encoded;
echo "\n";
echo pack("H*",$encoded);
?>

example You can use bin2hex to encode it, and pack to decode it.

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up vote 0 down vote

Generally speaking, you don't want to divorce your URL from any semblance of meaning for the user unless you are significantly shortening it for use in character-limited settings like a Twitter post.

That said, there are a few ways to implement this. You can:

  • Pre-generate these URLs and store the cross-referenced query string in the database (use "f4cdret4" as a unique index, "a=10&b=20&c=30" as a second column)
  • Mash them together with some kind of separator (a=10&b=20&c=30 becomes "a10-b20-c30")

  • Use htaccess to make pseudo-directories (a=10&b=20&c=30 becomes "mydomain.com/q/10/20/30")

    RewriteEngine On

    RewriteRule /q/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)$ /page/play.php?a=$1&b=$2&c=$3

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