Using RegExp in getVideoId.php

[anjanesh]

For some YouTube videos, the getVideoId.php doesnt retrieve the video_id & tag_t values.
For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzbwV7on6Q

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: getVideoId.php?method=videoId&noCache=0%2E6937495740130544&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAIzbwV7on6Q
Line Number 3, Column 91:		var additionalStatsHonorsUrl = '/watch_ajax?v=AIzbwV7on6Q&action_get_statistics_and_data=1&l=EN';
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^

I replaced the the string functions with RegExp (preg_match) and it works.

PHP Code:

<?php
    $url = trim($_REQUEST['url']);

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

    $info = curl_exec($ch);

    preg_match('#"video_id":.*?"(.*?)"#is', $info, $matches);
    $video_id = $matches[1];

    preg_match('#"t":.*?"(.*?)"#is', $info, $matches);
    $tag_t = $matches[1];

    /*
    $pos1 = strpos($info, '"video_id": "');
    $pos2 = strpos($info, '"t": "');

    $video_id = substr($info, $pos1 + 13);
        $video_id = substr($video_id, 0, strpos($video_id, '", '));

        $tag_t = substr($info, $pos2 + 6);
        $tag_t = substr($tag_t, 0, strpos($tag_t, '", '));
        * */

        $response  = '<video>';
        $response .= '<id>' . $video_id . '</id>';
        $response .= '<t>' . $tag_t . '</t>';
        $response .= '</video>';

    header("Content-type: text/xml");

    echo $response;

        curl_close($ch);
?>

[Patrick - FL TEAM]

Thank you for this new information. We will keep this in mind and we are sure other users will find this information valuable.

Thanks.

[Joel - FL TEAM]

We've just updated the php version of the proxy file with this code in case other users encounter the same problem. Thanks again for posting this.

[anjanesh]

If json is enabled (default on PHP 5.2.0 and above), its best to use json_decode to decode the JavaScript variables.

PHP Code:

<?php

    $url = trim($_REQUEST['url']);

    $ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

    $info = curl_exec($ch);

    if (!preg_match('#var swfArgs = (\{.*?\})#is', $info, $matches))
    {
        echo "Check the YouTube URL : {$_REQUEST['url']} <br/>\n";
        die("Couldnt detect swfArgs");
    }

    if (function_exists(json_decode)) # >= PHP 5.2.0
    {
        $swfArgs = json_decode($matches[1]);
        $video_id = $swfArgs->video_id;
        $tag_t = $swfArgs->t;
    }
    else
    {
        preg_match('#"video_id":.*?"(.*?)"#is', $matches[1], $submatches);
        $video_id = $submatches[1];

        preg_match('#"t":.*?"(.*?)"#is', $matches[1], $submatches);
        $tag_t = $submatches[1];
    }

    $response  = '<video>';
    $response .= '<id>' . $video_id . '</id>';
    $response .= '<t>' . $tag_t . '</t>';
    $response .= '</video>';

    header("Content-type: text/xml");

    echo $response;

    curl_close($ch);
?>

[Joel - FL TEAM]

Thanks so much for this information and for suggesting this change. We've applied it to the php proxy file. We really appreciate your input on this