use of $_request

[phpforum]

I am new to php and reading a book on this. I cannot follow how S_request is being used by the script page.php to use variable story from the script Index.php.
I thought $request is used to access form variables only but variable story is not a form variable, then how is $request being used to access variable story in page.php? Am i right? Someone please help.

INDEX.PHP

<?php
include_once('db_fns.php');
include_once('header.php');

$handle = db_connect();

$pages_sql = 'select * from pages order by code';
$pages_result = $handle->query($pages_sql);

echo '<table border="0" width="400">';

while ($pages = $pages_result->fetch_assoc())
{
$story_sql = "select * from stories
where page = '{$pages['code']}'
and published is not null
order by published desc";

$story_result = $handle->query($story_sql);

if ($story_result->num_rows) 
{
  $story = $story_result->fetch_assoc();
  echo "<tr>
        <td>
          <h2>{$pages['description']}</h2>
          <p>{$story['headline']}</p>
          <p align='right' class='morelink'>
            <a href='page.php?page={$pages['code']}'>
            Read more {$pages['code']} ...
            </a>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td width='100'>";
  if ($story['picture'])
  {
    echo '<img src="resize_image.php?image=';
    echo urlencode($story[picture]);
    echo '&max_width=80&max_height=60"  />';
  }
  echo '</td></tr>';
}

}
echo '</table>';

include_once('footer.php');
?>

PAGE.PHP

<?php
if (!isset($REQUEST['page'])&&!isset($REQUEST['story']))
{
header('Location: index.php');
exit;
}

$page = $REQUEST['page'];
$story = intval($REQUEST['story']);

include_once('db_fns.php');
include_once('header.php');

$handle = db_connect();
if($story)
{
$query = "select from stories
where id = '$story' and
published is not null";
}
else
{
$query = "select from stories
where page = '$page' and
published is not null
order by published desc";
}
$result = $handle->query($query);

while ($story = $result->fetch_assoc())
{
// headline
echo "<h2>{$story['headline']}</h2>";
//picture
if ($story['picture'])
{
echo '<div style="float:right; margin:0px 0px 6px 6px;">';
echo '<img src="resize_image.php?image=';
echo urlencode($story[picture]);
echo '&max_width=200&max_height=120" align = right/></div>';
}
// byline
$w = get_writer_record($story['writer']);
echo '<br /><p class="byline">';
echo $w[full_name].', ';
echo date('M d, H:i', $story['modified']);
echo '</p>';
// main text
echo $story['story_text'];

}
include_once('footer.php');
?>

[Houdini]

It is an associative array consisting of the contents of $GET $POST and $_COOKIES see the manual reserved variables

[phpforum]

Hi,

 Thanks for replying Houdini but i am still unable to understand how is this

<?php
if (!isset($REQUEST['page'])&&!isset($REQUEST['story']))
{
header('Location: index.php');
exit;
}

$page = $REQUEST['page'];
$story = intval($REQUEST['story']);

possible in page.php . I understand story contains an associative array but it is not a $get, $post or $_sesion, cokkie superglobal variable.

How is the variable being used as a superglobal variable in page.php?

[Houdini]

There is a difference between a $COOKIE and a $SESSION somewhere a $COOKIE could be set somewhere else and that cookie would be on the users machine, a session will only last while the user in actually on your site and when they leave will time aout, but a cookie set on the users machine will be there if they return a day or so later depending on how it is set.

setcookie("page", $value, time()+60*60*24*30 );

Would set a cookie named page for 30 days so you might want to check the code for a setcookie() somewhere. Then if $_REQUEST['page'] sees a cookie or that is set then the code will execute.

[Installer]

Or, does the first "if" clause in "page.php" succeed (i.e. it redirects to "index.php")? If it does, then that's because the index (not variable) "story" really doesn't exist.

[phpforum]

is something like this possible that because $ story is being assigned a value with the help of
$pages in Index.php, $story automatically becomes available to $_request in page.php? I mean
is the following code got to do something with this?

while ($pages = $pages_result->fetch_assoc())
{
$story_sql = "select * from stories
where page = '{$pages['code']}'
and published is not null
order by published desc";

$story_result = $handle->query($story_sql);

if ($story_result->num_rows)
{
$story = $story_result->fetch_assoc();

[phpforum]

yes installer u r right there Thank u, but someone please answer the above question for me.