sending array via query string in guzzle

Question

Guzzle client creates by default from this code

$client->get('https://example.com/{?a}', array('a' => array('c','d')));

this url

https://example.com/?a=c,d

What is the best practice to send array in query string in RESTful application? The question is, how can I determine on the server side whether c,d is a string or an array? Isn't it better to send arrays using square brackets, e.g. a[]=c&a[]=d? How can I set Guzzle to use square brackets? Or it is better to use JSON encoded variables? On the server side I'm using Tonic.

Answer 1

Guzzle has a helper function you can use called build_query(). This uses PHP's http_build_query().

Here's an example of how to use it:

$params = [
    'a[]' => [
        'c',
        'd'
    ],
    'page' => 1
];

$query = \GuzzleHttp\Psr7\build_query($params);

$response = $client->request('GET', 'https://example.com/', [
    'query' => $query
]);

Answer 2

I'm not 100% sure this quite answers the question. But I found the question while looking for how to construct complex queries using Guzzle and none of the answers here were the solution I ended up using. I'm adding it here in case it's ever useful for any other devs.

Using Guzzle 6, you can do this type of request:

    $endPoint = "https://example.com";

    $queryParams = [
        'a' => [
            [
                "b" => "c"
            ]
        ]
    ];

    $options = [
        'debug' => true, // so you can see what the request looks like
        'query' => $queryParams
    ];

    $client->request('GET', $endPoint, $options);

As a real world example, query params like this:

    $queryParams = [
        'filters' => [
            [
                "field" => "status",
                "value" => "open",
                "operator" => "equal"
            ],
            [
                "field" => "total",
                "operator" => "greater_than",
                "value" => 50
            ],
        ],
        'limit' => 500,
        'start' => 7
    ];

produce a url like this:

https://example.com?filters=[{"field":"status","operator":"equal","value":"open"},{"field":"total","operator":"less_than","value":50}]&limit=500&start=7

The point being that the query key of the $options array, seems very powerful. I'd recommend having a play with that before going down the route of writing complex regular expressions.

Answer 3

Working Solution:

$vars = array('state[]' => array('Assigned','New'), 'per_page' => $perPage, 'page' => $pageNumber);
$query = http_build_query($vars, null, '&');
$string = preg_replace('/%5B(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]+)%5D=/', '=', $query); // state[]=Assigned&state[]=New
$client = new Client([follow instruction to initialize your client ....]);
$response = $client->request('GET', $uri, ['query' => $string]);

Now you have same name parameters in your request.

Dung.

Source: http_build_query with same name parameters

Answer 4

It seems the answer is here.

I wanted to do something like ?status[]=first&status[]=second

You can do this in Guzzle like shown in the link above:

$client = new Client('http://test.com/api');    
$request = $client->get('/resource');    
$query = $request->getQuery();    
$query->set('status', array('first', 'second'));