How to base64 encode an image from the facebook api

Question

I am attempting to convert an image url provided by the facebook api into base64 format with cURL.

the api provides a url as such:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-         


        

Answer 1

To address your specific problem, your script is likely failing because the required oh, oe, __gda__ parameters are getting separated during the GET request and therefore are not included in $_GET['url'].

Make sure you're using a URL-encoded string so any unencoded & characters aren't handled as delimiters. Then just decode the string before passing it on to cURL.

...

$url = urldecode($_GET['url']);

...

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For anyone curious, you can still load any Facebook image from any one of their legacy CDNs without needing the new parameters:

1. https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/
2. https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/
3. https://scontent-c-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/

Just append the original image filename to the URL et voila.

Disclaimer: I have no idea how long this little trick will work for so don't use it on anything important in production.