rawurlencode issue

[OAFC_Rob]

Hey people just been watching a php tutorial that mentions using rawurlencode for the links, ive pretty much followed th tutorial to the later bar using different pages, see coding below. However, it just doesnt work bringing back that object was not found 

 

Any ideas whats going wrong or why it isn't working?

 

		<?php
			#retrive from database and do a foreach loop maybe.
			$urlPage = "loginArea/login.php";
                                $param1 = "robert"; 

			$url = "http://localhost/duff3/";
			$url .= rawurlencode($urlPage);
                                $url .= "?userId=" . urlencode($param1);

		?>
                    
                         <ul class="menu">                                                                               
                             <li><a href="<?php $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] ?>/duff3/index.php" class="nav_selected"> home </a></li>
                             <li><a href="test.php?id=1" class="nav"> bio</a></li>
                             <li><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($url); ?>" class="nav"> publicity</a></li>
                             <li><a href="" class="nav"> recordings</a></li>
                             <li><a href="" class="nav"> contact </a></li>
                        </ul>

[requinix]

rawurlencode() will encode slashes. The result is that Apache thinks the link is to a file named "loginArea/login.php" (which is not the same as the "login.php" file in the "loginArea" directory).

 

In the code you've posted there is no need to use rawurlencode() anywhere.

[OAFC_Rob]

So basically it is the direct pathway then? Rather than a pointing to the link

[requinix]

"Direct pathway"? "Pointing to the link"? What?

[OAFC_Rob]

As in a pathway that you would use on your computer ie C:/programs/

[requinix]

Um...

So basically it is the direct pathway then? Rather than a pointing to the link

Yes :-\

[OAFC_Rob]

Okay I think I get you know, when / where would be the best place to use rawurlencode?

[requinix]

You would use rawurlencode() for paths in a URL, but for the individual names - not an entire chunk of it. Only only if you don't know that the name is valid in that part of a URI.

 

Your path is //localhost/duff3/loginArea/login.php. You know that for sure. Since it's URL-valid (ie, no unusual characters) you don't have to do anything to it.

If you didn't know for sure then you might use rawurlencode() for directory and file names.

"//localhost/" . rawurlencode($base_directory) . "/" . rawurlencode($sub_directory) . "/" . rawurlencode($submit_filename)

 

With that all said, I have never used rawurlencode() for anything. urlencode, a similar function with a similar use, is much more common.

[OAFC_Rob]

Thanks for explaining that, I have used urlencode before and thought rawurlencode was for all of it, but I get it now, it is more for something like http://localhost/duff3/new page/ and stuff like that unusual characters and for only bits of it, correct?

[requinix]

Right.

(But you might as well just type "new%20page" instead of using rawurlencode() for it.)

[OAFC_Rob]

yep I get it now thanks for the help