Confused ; '+' character missing when sending JSON data to a PHP backend

[hgs]

HI

I need some help with sending JSON data to a PHP backend.

In my client JavaScript I do the below before sending it to the backend.


jsonPost={
'table':cfg.db_table_name ,
'idfield':idfield,
'inputValue':inv,
'task':task ,
'id':id,
'name':name,
'attachTable':cfg.attachTable,
'commentTable':cfg.commentTable
};
cache.push('jsonPost='+(JSON.stringify(jsonPost)));
cfg.backend = cfg.fields.griddir + '/php/' + cfg.backendScripts[task];
HGSGRID.sendCacheEntry();


What surprises me is that, if the inputValue set via the value inv has
the value of "PKI+" the '+' character never makes it to the PHP side.

I tryed it with multiple '+++' in different patterns but none shows up on the PHP side.

Below is what the debugger (Chrome) tells me what jsonPost looks like , after JSON.stringify,


jsonPost: Object
attachTable: "attachements"
commentTable: "cell_comments"
id: "11"
idfield: "id"
inputValue: "PKI<>+"
name: "url"
table: "info"
task: "update"



Here it is displayed form the header (Chrome) what has been send via the http request:

This has been send;
Form Data view URL encoded


jsonPost:{"table":"info","idfield":"id","inputValue":"PKI<>","task":"update","id":"11",
"name:"url","attachTable":"attachements","commentTable":"cell_comments"}

Here is when switching to decode, the + show up but is not sent
Form Data view URL decoded


jsonPost:{"table":"info","idfield":"id","inputValue":"PKI<>+","task":"update","id":"11",
"name":"url","attachTable":"attachements","commentTable":"cell_comments"}


For the moment I can't see what I am doing wrong

Regards
Heinz

[hgs]

Hi
I think i found the cause;

i used


xmlHttp.open("POST", cfg.backend, false);
xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

This usually replaces blanks with '+' , however I still don't know why an embedded '+'
is not transfered.

Howerver , I switched to using


xmlHttp.open("POST", cfg.backend, false);
xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");

Made some minor changes on the client side and some minor changes in the backend
like this;


$json=@file_get_contents('php://input');
$_POST=json_decode($json,true);


It' working now.

Regards
Heinz

[devnull69]

In order to correctly encode all (not only +) characters into URI compliant representations for parameters to be sent via Ajax, you need to use encodeURIComponent() on each parameter's name and value

[sbhmf]

+ characters are transformed into blank spaces when they upload to the server. For a quick and painless fix I recommend simply substituting it with another character.

Another example of your problem is with base64 encoding for URLs, see it referenced here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...ied-base64-url

[rnd me]

as a binary transfer, like "application/json", the "+" needs no special handling, and the JSON layer makes sure any non-ascii chars are dumbed down.

[hgs]

Thank you for all your help !

As base64 encoding was mentioned , that is exactly where I stumbled
about the problem with the '+' character, as this character is part of the encoding.

I use base64 encoding for all user input before sending it to the backend.
Switching to use "application/json" solved the problem for me .

I also use now base64 encoding and JSON to transfer 'unknown' data from the backend
server to my client.

Before that I used XML to do this and had all sorts of trouble.

JSON rules


Regards
Heinz