Pages built into one.

[batman]

Hello,

This is sort of an odd question, but here goes. I've seen pages where when you click on a link it stays on that page but with a different url.
e.g. page.php then a link off of that page would be

page.php?page=page# or something like that.

It's sort of like all the pages are built into one, with different id's.

thanks,
-Blake

[yurko]

<?PHP
$page = $HTTP_GET_VARS["page"];
if(!$page)$page = "some_default_page_id"; / / or notfound error page

//Now make query to mySQL or somehow other get url basing on id ($page)
//I skip it here because it is up to you. Maybe something like this
//SELECT url FROM your_Table WHERE id=$page

//lets suppose the result is already fetched to $url variable

//lets redirect user to the page
header("Location $url");

?>

[cgraz]

here's an example of one way of doing this:

Create one file - index.php

Put your design into it and lay it all out how you want. Wherever the content area would be, put the following code:

if(!$_GET['p']) {
   include("incl/home.incl");
} else {
   include("incl/" . $_GET['p'] . ".incl");
}

What this code will do is check for a variable p in the url. If there is no variable, it includes home.incl (from the incl directory). If there is a value, then it includes the name of the variable with a .incl extension.

This means you would need to make a folder called /incl and place your actual content in there. Your home page content would be home.incl

For the other pages, you'd make links like this:

<a href="?p=about">About Us</a><br>
<a href="?p=contact">Contact Us</a>

Then you'd need to make a .incl file for each one.

about.incl and contact.incl and place them both in your incl folder.

Cgraz

[Mordecai]

Originally posted by yurko
<?PHP
header("Location $url");
?>

This last line is incorrect. You can use the header function to rewrite location, but it requires more than just this little bit. Also, some browsers do not read relative path names, so you'll have to tell it where the server is:
header("Location: [url]http://[/url]".$SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].dirname($SERVER['PHP_SELF'])."/".$url);
Keep in mind that this WILL rewrite the URL, as the browser is physically changing pages.

I recommend using include() or require(). These do take relative URLs, of course, because they are server-side.

Remember that whenever you are going to this page through a form that you need to specify page as a hidden value, and also remember that the URL is retrieved via GET. You'll have to make some modifications to your code so you can also get the URL if it is sent via POST:
$url = $GET["page"].$POST["page"];

Hope this helps.

[generic]

I don't know if this is a PHP thing but I've seen:

www.site.com/?page

Is this accomplished similarly or is it ASP or something else?

• gen

[Mordecai]

Originally posted by cgraz

if(!$_GET['p']) {
   include("incl/home.incl");
} else {
   include("incl/" . $_GET['p'] . ".incl");
}

[/B]

This is the method I use and the method I feel is best. Just to expand on cgraz's code, try it with some error-proofing:

if (!$_GET['p']) {
  include("incl/home.incl");
} else {
  if (file_exists("incl/".$_GET['p'].".incl")) {
    include("incl/".$_GET['p'].".incl");
  }
  else {
    include("incl/404.incl");
  }
}

All this does is checks if the include file exists before including it. If not, it opens and displays incl/404.incl, a page that would display a custom HTTP 404 (file not found) error.

Also, keep in mind this does not have to be a ".incl," as PHP can include even other PHP files. If you plan on using .incl, make sure you add this to your server's PHP parsing list so others can't view the code by visiting it.
If you're using Apache, in httpd.conf:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .incl

[Mordecai]

Originally posted by generic
www.site.com/?page
Is this accomplished similarly or is it ASP or something else?

Sure. It could be done with ASP, too.
All HTTP servers can recieve HTTP queries, or information sent along with the URL. This is usually separated from the URL by a question mark (?). Information inside the query string is separated by an ampersand (&).
To retrieve the query string in PHP, simply use $QUERY_STRING .

[dgnorton]

As a .php:
make the primary page (first/starting page) if(f==0){[put whatever html or other php code here]}

regarding links:
reference links and form submitions back to the same page (.php), but to the next "panel" (.php?f=1). In if(f==1){[put whatever this 'panel' is supposed to have (html or php code)]}

...so on and so forth.

I've built quite a few of my customers pages like this, just to keep the code consolidated and easy to trace. If you need more help you can email me: [e-mail]🙂

[batman]

Thank you very much Mordecai, dgnorton, and cgraz. I will try your examples.