Need help with recognizing only the first part of a GET VARS value

[dotcomtim]

I am experimenting with my HTTP_GET_VARS to help clean up my URLs by using sessions, session data and having the URLs look like the following instead /signin/?authenticate/030-CBN-36ZD/

Currently I would be using /signin/?authenticate=030-CBN-36ZD

if (isset($HTTP_GET_VARS['authenticate']))
{
include ("authenticate.php");
exit;
}

I would go about using HTTP_GET_VARS['authenticate/030-CBN-36ZD/'] but with the value 030-CBN-36ZD constantly changing I can't..

Is there away to strip everything after the / slashes to only recognize the HTTP_GET_VARS value 'authenticate' only?

[dotcomtim]

I got it to work by using the following method.

if (eregi ('authenticate', $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['REQUEST_URI']))
{
include ("authenticate.php");
exit;
}

$REMOVE_AUTHENTICATE = eregi_replace("\?authenticate/", "", $REQUEST_URI);

$AUTH = eregi_replace("/", "", $REMOVE_AUTHENTICATE);

If there is a better method I am all open to suggestions

[xblue]

not sure if I understand, but couldn't you use explode with / as separator?
www.php.net/explode

[dotcomtim]

Dam! I sure can ... and I get what I want in fewer steps.

Thanks a bunch