getting URL a visitor comes from

Anon

Hi, first I'd like to introduce myself: My name is Ulrik and I am new to the PHP scripting language. I am a programmer who recently got involved in webprogramming - against his will 🙂 - and now I am working on my first PHP project.

My first question is quite simple - I hope:

I need to get the URL somebody came from. So if a visitor comes to the page over a link from another page, I need to obtain the URL of this page. This should be possible, since I see this feature in many web-logs. So how do I obtain this information? I searched through the PHP functions but without success, so I guess it is somekind of environment variable from the Apache or something...

Any help is greatly appreciated 🙂

Thanx

Ulrik

van__

echo $HTTP_REFERER;

Anon

Quick note about HTTP_REFERER:
It only has a value set IF the user clicked on a link that goes to your PHP script. It is empty if a user simply types in the URL to go directly to the script.

-Josh B

[deleted]

Another small note:

The correct way to access HTTP_REFERER is:
echo $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['HTTP_REFERER']

or in 4.1.1+;
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']

Using globals is not a good idea.

van__

Really now?
Well, I guess I'll just have to rewrite my massive object library which references everything in the global scope
$GLOBALS['HTTP_REFERRER']

But, yes, I believe my variable mangement object sets a constant from $_SERVER['WHATEVER'] for PHP 4.1.2

But hey... isn't that a GLOBAL too?
Or is it something special?
Guess it's not a good idea, better not read any of the global environment.
🙂

tomhath

You might want to read this section of the manual:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.php

van__

Wow, I learned alot.
Thanks.
cough

not that I haven't been using:

Global variables: $GLOBALS
Note: $GLOBALS has been available since PHP 3.0.0.

An associative array containing references to all variables which are currently defined in the global scope of the script. The variable names are the keys of the array.

This is a 'superglobal', or automatic global, variable. This simply means that it is available in all scopes throughout a script. You don't need to do a global $GLOBALS; to access it within functions or methods.

Forever and a day.
I was hoping I'd see something on why not to read and write to the GLOBAL scope.

And isn't that what you responded to, was that question?

Maybe you didn't see my other lil post about $GLOBALS['HTTP_REFERER'] ... which is compatable with all versions since 3.
But, hey... let's tell the guy to use the latest and greatest which he is more than likely not to have access to, I mean come on, the guy is asking a bs question about a basic feature and you guys assume he's got a version that was released within the last half year or so.

But, hey... obviously I need to read the manual 🙂