how to read the url

unisabilly

is there any way that i can read the actual url entered by the user !?
ie. not $SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] nor $SERVER["PHP_SELF"] coz those two give the excuted page instead of the actual url entered by the user, what i am looking for is something like var url = document.write(location) of javascript.
the reason i need the url entered by the user is that i'm going to parse the url and redirect the user to the best match page if the page that user entered does not exist ie.under 404.shtml i'll use  therefore if i use $SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] or $SERVER["PHP_SELF"] it will return 404.php instead of the url entered by the user.

unisabilly

for example
if user enter the following: www.mydomain.com/monitor (which the directory does not even exist)
the 404.shtml page will redirect to : www.mydomain.com/search.php?word=monitor

another example
if user enter the following: www.mydomain.com/ibm
redirect to : www.mydomain.com/shop.php?id=shop00001 (search the shop id from the database first, if exist redirect to the page of the shop dirctly, else redirect to the search page like first example)

h4x0rmx

Why don't you try: $_SERVER['PATH_INFO']

Installer

$SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $SERVER['REQUEST_URI']
or mod_rewrite