使用特殊字符进行API调用

Question

I have built an API. To perform a search on it, I do something like the following

$tableData = DB::table($table)->where('search', $search)->get();

This will essentially form a URL like so (with table and search replaced by other values).

https://something.com/api/returnSearch/{{table}}/{{search}}

My problem is this. The search item it something along the lines of the following

something (asda/tesco)

So the complete URL looks like this

https://something.com/api/returnSearch/someTable/something (asda/tesco)

The problem is the forward slash in the search, seperating asda and tesco. When I test it out in postman I get

NotFoundHttpException in RouteCollection.php line 161:

So I presume it thinks the forward slash is part of the url. Is there any way I can avoid this whilst still allowing a search with a forward slash?

Thanks

Answer 1

To include characters in a URL which have a special meaning in a URL , you need to escape/encode them according to URL formatting rules. Specifically: rawurlencode .

printf('https://something.com/api/returnSearch/%s/%s',
       rawurlencode($table), rawurlencode($search))

// https://something.com/api/returnSearch/someTable/something%20%28asda%2Ftesco%29