How can I send a page a variable using its URL?

AzeemNYC

I know i can do somehting.com/selectcategory.php?catid=2

but on that page how can I store the variable?

drew010

on that page you can get the contents of the variable using $_GET['catid'] and if you want to save it to a file, use fopen and fwrite.

celibate54

or you can use a switch

http://blah.com?do=cat2

then with php code


switch(@$do) { 
    case "cat2": 
             // something 
             break; 

case "cat3": 
        //something else 
        break; 

default: 
        //default case 
        break; 
}

EDIT: fixed my broken switch statements...@ work and I can't, apparantly, do two things at once =)...except i still prefer @$do over $_GET['do'] -- is the latter more efficient and I am just unaware?

drew010

except a switch would be

switch($_GET['do']) {
    case "cat2":
             // something
             break;

case "cat3":
        //something else
        break;

default:
        //default case
        break;
}

drew010

now that php ships with register globals off and more and more admins are turning it off due to security reasons, $do will not exist, and it must be accessed as $_GET['do'] so as good practice, and actually now necessary if you want to distribute php scripts or share code, using the autoglobal arrays is something you need to do.
and if you surpress any errors on $do because it doesnt exist, you switch will do very strange things and it wont be apparent why.

AzeemNYC

Thanks guys but I figured it out... all i had to do was:

$catid= $_GET["catid"];

celibate54

hehe i am still not the most efficient programmer...i had $_GET['do'] = $do

i guess i could save a line or two if i just stuck that into the switch itself =)