With Algolia, how to pass the query string created by urlSync into the php client?

Question

Working with the Algolia InstantSearch js library and the PHP client, I wish to pass the query string created by InstantSearch urlSync into the PHP library's search method. Is there a convenient way to do this or will I have to translate the query string to the params the library expects by myself?

For example, I have the string:

?q=&hPP=1000&idx=myindex&p=0&dFR%5Bcolor%5D%5B0%5D=orange&is_v=1

Ideally I would like to

$client = new \AlgoliaSearch\Client("x", "x");
$index = $client->initIndex($_GET['idx']);
parse_str($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], $params);
$res = $index->search('', $params);

but doing so throws an error that there are unexpected properties in the params passed.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, it's indeed not possible to reuse the instant search URL in your back-end using Algolia clients. I would assume you're asking this for SEO purposes, which is a definitely valid point.

The only language in which this would be doable at the moment is JavaScript. Indeed, this logic is extractable from the underlying library of instantsearch.js : algoliasearch-helper-js .

• Use getStateFromQueryString to get the state
• Create a new helper instance
• Set its state with the previously retrieved one using setState
• Finally, use the undocumented (and soon deprecated) getQuery method

You could actually add this logic in the front-end, URL-encode this query and set it in a custom parameter that you'd decode in your back-end. That's pretty ugly but it could work (it might not fit in the maximum URI length though).

In the front-end, you wouldn't have to go through the process of extracting the state from the URL and setting the state to a new helper, you can simply use search.helper - where search is your instantsearch.js instance.