视频ID以（ - ）减号时的PHP youtube xml Feed错误

Question

I'm using this code to grab youtube videos information and it's working fine until I get an error when I try any video starts with (-) Minus Example: -VF0JwxQqcA

<?php
    //The Youtube"s API url
    define('YT_API_URL', 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=');
    //Change below the video id.
    $video_id2 = "$video_id2";
    //Using cURL php extension to make the request to youtube API
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, YT_API_URL . $video_id2);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    //$feed holds a rss feed xml returned by youtube API
    $feed = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    //Using SimpleXML to parse youtube"s feed
    $xml = simplexml_load_string($feed);
    $entry = $xml->entry[0];
    //If no entry whas found, then youtube didn"t find any video with specified id
    if(!$entry) exit('Error: no video with id "' . $video_id2 . '" whas found. Please specify the id of a existing video.');
    $media = $entry->children("media", true);
    $group = $media->group;

    $title = $group->title;//$title: The video title

    $desc = $group->description;//$desc: The video description
    $news_images = $group->thumbnail[0];//There are 4 thumbnails, the first one (index 0) is the largest.
    //$thumb_url: the url of the thumbnail. $thumb_width: thumbnail width in pixels.
    //$thumb_height: thumbnail height in pixels. $thumb_time: thumbnail time in the video
    list($thumb_url) = $news_images->attributes();
    $content_attributes = $group->content->attributes();
    //$vid_duration: the duration of the video in seconds. Ex.: 192.
    $vid_duration = $content_attributes["duration"];
    //$duration_formatted: the duration of the video formatted in "mm:ss". Ex.:01:54
    $source= "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/$video_id2/mqdefault.jpg";
?>

The error will be: Error: no video with id "-VF0JwxQqcA" whas found. Please specify the id of a existing video.

Any Help Please? Thanks

Answer 1

The problem is that you're using the search feed, and so YouTube interprets your call with a video starting with a '-' as you intending to exclude that string. If you already know the video id, however, you shouldn't be using the search feed at all ... that's really intended to search keywords. If you know the videoID, you should use this feed:

https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/-VF0JwxQqcA

(in other words, get rid of the 'q' URL parameter, and then append the videoID as part of the URL path).

You may need to change your parser slightly, but it's a more reliable way to return the video data.

May I also suggest looking at moving to v3 of the API? You would use an endpoint like this:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=id,snippet&id=-VF0JwxQqcA&key={YOUR_API_KEY}

The data returned will be JSON, which is much easier to parse, and you won't have to worry about needing to change your app when v2 is deprecated. The info that v3 returns is also more complete for video resources.