In this episode, we tackle the process of normalizing the endpoint location before it's stored in our database. We start by showing the problems that can arise if you let users submit any old value for an endpoint—think about weird slashes, missing schemes, or messy query strings. You get to see how something like abc = true can end up being stored, which definitely isn't what we want!
We walk through a simple strategy for cleaning up this data: first by combining the site scheme (like https) and domain (like example.com) with the endpoint to guarantee a proper URL structure. Then we get hands-on with trimming off any excess characters—multiple slashes, unnecessary question marks, and so on. We make use of PHP's parse_url to handle most of the hard work, particularly for grabbing query strings and piecing everything together in a consistent way.
You'll see that the normalization isn't perfect, but it's a solid foundation, and you can always tweak it to be stricter later if you need. The big win here is ensuring that, no matter how the user enters the endpoint (with or without leading slashes, random whitespace, or weird query additions), what we store in the database is always predictable and clean. This keeps your app running smoothly and sets you up for hassle-free expansion down the line.
By the end, you'll have a normalized endpoint location whenever you create a new endpoint, and an understanding of where you might beef up validation and normalization if your use case demands it.