Best code for replacing special characters and spaces with a dash for use in a URL

[orclord1]

I am a new coder and am trying to display a name, as part of a URL.

I believe I have to use the preg_replace() php function, but I cannot find a good source for explaining the syntax of this. I want to convert all special characters and spaces to a dash. Could someone please help me out with the syntax for this?

[orclord1]

I have tried using this, and I think it is partially working, but I am still doing something wrong. An ampersand in the name is being converted to a dash, but spaces are not. Also, I’m getting a lot of %20 in the URL.

Here is the code I used:
preg_replace(‘/[^a-zA-Z0-9 s]/’,‘-’,$str’])

I am trying to have this URL:

https://www.minisgallery.com/index.php?id=7033&task=image&imageName=Chwinga%20-%20Space%20Guppy

Instead display as:

https://www.minisgallery.com/index.php?id=7033&task=image&imageName=Chwinga-Space-Guppy

Here is my code that is generating this:

echo '<a href="' . $indexPage . '?id=' . $result_mini['id'] . '&task=image&imageName=' . preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9 s]/','-',$result_mini['name']) . '" target="_blank">';

How can I eliminate the %20’s from displaying?

How can I replace the spaces with dashes – I thought the reference of “s” in the preg_replace is supposed to do that?

[SamuelCalifornia]

Are you familiar with the PHP urldecode function? If you can use the result of that then it is much easier.

[orclord1]

I’m not at all familiar with that, but I will read more about it. Thank you.

[SamA74]

There is a function for both urldecode() and urlencode().
Encode will turn your string into one suitable for a URL, no need for any regex. PHP has plenty of built in functions for common web tasks. It’s just a case of knowing about them.