HTTP_REFERRER error???

crazylegseddie

Hi all I hope someone out there can help me as I havent a clue how to proceed.

I am following a shopping basket tutorial and have managed to customise it into my site but after I have gone through the 1st stage of the checkout and click the submit and select the payment method 'paypal' to process the customer details I am presented with the following message:

'Notice: Undefined index: HTTP_REFERER in C:\Documents and Settings\ben\Desktop\Bens Briefcase\PHPTesting\whitedisc.com\TEST\whitedisc\include\checkoutConfirmation.php on line 9.

The php code for this page is as follows:

if (!defined('WEB_ROOT')
|| !isset($GET['step']) || (int)$GET['step'] != 2
|| $SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] != 'http://' . $SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '?step=1') {
exit;
}

I am runniing all the testing and implementing on my localhost before I upload to a live server. Can anyone assist me on this problem??

Thanks in advance!

bpat1434

Sounds like your server isn't sending the HTTP_REFERER...

THE manual wrote:
'HTTP_REFERER'
The address of the page (if any) which referred the user agent to the current page. This is set by the user agent. Not all user agents will set this, and some provide the ability to modify HTTP_REFERER as a feature. In short, it cannot really be trusted. [/quote]
You need to set your server up to send the info, otherwise it's not in the array....

crazylegseddie

Im using Apache 2.0? Where can I configure this to accept the referrer?

MarkR

You can't. It's the client which chooses whether to send a referrer or not.

You can't rely on referrer being sent under any circumstances. Often it will not be.

If the client doesn't send it, you won't get it, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Mark

crazylegseddie

Is there anyway around this problem then? Ive spent so long customising the shopping system for my dissertation, I dont have time to start again!

bpat1434

No, there is no way around it. Well, let me revise that. You could manually say "I'll store the referer in a session variable" and then recall that session var on each page you need the referer.

But as for using $_SERVER, no, HTTP_REFERER is not to be trusted (seeing as people can edit it) and most servers/clients don't sent it.