The original Ghist didn't sent the correct result if an empty string is sent to the function. My edit sends an empty array as the original parse_str

gistfile1.php

<?php

/**
 * do the same than parse_str without max_input_vars limitation
 * @param $string array string to parse
 * @return  array query parsed
 **/
function my_parse_str($string) {
	if($string==='') return array();
	$result = array();
	// find the pairs "name=value"
	$pairs = explode('&', $string);
	$toEvaluate = ''; // we will do a big eval() at the end not pretty but simplier
	foreach ($pairs as $pair) {
		list($name, $value) = explode('=', $pair, 2);
		$name = urldecode($name);
		$value = urldecode($value);
		// If the value is a number, set as a number, otherwise escape double quotes and surround in double quotes
		if (!is_numeric($value)) {
			$value = '"' . str_replace('"', '\"', $value) . '"';
		}
		if (strpos($name, '[') !== false) { // name is an array
			$name = preg_replace('|\[|', '][', $name, 1);
			$name = str_replace(array('\'', '[', ']'), array('\\\'', '[\'', '\']'), $name);
			$toEvaluate .= '$result[\'' . $name . ' = ' . $value . '; '; // $result['na']['me'] = 'value';
		} else {
			$name = str_replace('\'', '\\\'', $name);
			$toEvaluate .= '$result[\'' . $name . '\'] = ' . $value . '; '; // $result['name'] = 'value';
		}
	}
	eval($toEvaluate);
	return $result;
}

$array = my_parse_str($query);
?>

I used this script to circumvent the max_input_vars limit of PHP:https://gist.github.com/rubo77/6815945