Redirect

David_Bethel

Greetings,

I've seen and read tons of articles on redirect, but none are very concise or work for me. I have php running again after a messy upgrade. on Win98SE, Jana server, php 4.2.3

access.htm:

<html>
<head>
<title>Dynamic Redirect</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name=login action="redirect.php" target="_.blank">
<table width="440" border="3" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<td>Enter the folder name you wish to access:</td>
<td><input type="text" name=newlocation size="20"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

redirect.php:

<html>

<?php
header("Location: $newlocation");
?>

</html>

This should be a simple task, but has me going bonkers. I keep getting header errors. The FAQs, tutorials, etc all post little sniipets of code, but none that I have found give a complete answer or a total explantion of PHP coding. W3C has an excellent HTML tutorial and refefence section. I just haven't found it for PHP yet.

Any Assistance would greatly apprciated.. -David

128kb_com

With the header function you need to make sure you have no STDOUT at all before you set the headers.

As soon as you print or echo anything to the screen, php has allready set the headers for you. Setting them again will produce errors.

In you case, your output is sent outside of the <?php ... ?> tags, remember, anything outside the php tags are printed as STDOUT.

a simple:
<?php
header("Location: $newlocation");
?>

without your html will suffice. Also, if your first couple of lines are empty and your opening <?php tag is not on the first line, you will also get errors - thats considered a couple of blank lines of STDOUT.

David_Bethel

Thanks for the reply

I edited redirect.php to 1 line ( removed all html tags ):

<?php header("Location: $newlocation");?>

this is the browser address bar:

"http://www.davidbethel.com/redirect.php?newlocation=phils"

This is the error I now get

Notice: Undefined variable: newlocation in C:\WEB\redirect.php on line 1 Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at C:\WEB\redirect.php:1) in C:\WEB\redirect.php on line 1

-David

128kb_com

Losts of things can trigger php to automattically send headers, one of which is an error in your code - the errors are printed to STDOUT, this means php has to send headers to the browser before it prints the error message.

The problem you have know is simple, if you read the error message, you find that:
Notice: Undefined variable: newlocation

David_Bethel

Thanks for the reply.

I must be missing something very basic with this php stuff, but isn't that what the "?newlocation=value" in the address bar does? Define 'newloaction'? And assign it a value?

Parameter passing is so much easier in the languages I'm used to.....

-David

128kb_com

I must be missing something very basic with this php stuff, but isn't that what the "?newlocation=value" in the address bar does? Define 'newloaction'? And assign it a value?

In your first post you defined $newlocation (a form variable from access.htm)

redirect.php:
<html>

<?php
header("Location: $newlocation");
?>

</html>

Sorry, I was assuming that you had a basic knowledge of php and accessing form variables.

First of all, you don't have a method on your form to know how to access $newlocation, and depending on your version of php which Global array you will use to access it, and finally if you have register_globals turned on in your php.ini.

Take a look at The Manual, particularly:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.predefined.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.external.php

David_Bethel

Sorry, I was assuming that you had a basic knowledge of php and accessing form variables. <<

That's OK I find that to be true in most NG postings ( I usually hang in AutoCAD's AutoLisp NG and the same thing happens there as well )

First of all, you don't have a method on your form to know how to access $newlocation <<

As I understand the W3C HTML standards, the default is GET

you have register_globals turned on in your php.ini. <<

That's actually all it took to get this thing working. Tnak you very much!!

Take a look at The Manual, particularly:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/langua....predefined.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/langua...es.external.php

I see I have a lot of reading to do.

My next step is to concatenation the parameter with ".htm" to open a htm file instead of going to a specifed folder.

<?php header("Location: $newlocation + ".htm");?>

Thanks for your help -David

128kb_com

>> you have register_globals turned on in your php.ini. <<

That's actually all it took to get this thing working. Tnak you very much!!

Actually, That wasn't a suggestion, it was question. You should keep register_globals off, and access your form variables via:
// php4.1+
$POST['formfield']
$GET['formfield']

// pre 4.1
$HTTP_POST_VARS['formfield']
$HTTP_GET_VARS['formfield']

instead of just $formfield.

David_Bethel

Redirect.htm:

<?php header("Location: $_GET['newloaction']");?>

Gives this error:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in C:\WEB\redirhtm.php on line 1

Why OFF on the global setting, Is it unsafe? -David

128kb_com

Why OFF on the global setting, Is it unsafe?

Because its easier for peple to fake a GET or POST to your app.

When using array variables in strings you need some extra syntax, usually ${array[1]} will suffice but I would use something like;

<?php header("Location: " . $_GET['newloaction']);?>

RTFM, and whatch your spelling of newlocation!