How To Get the URL That Invoked Your Page?

mac57

I am a PHP newbie. I am trying to figure out how to query and get the URL that invoked your page and any of the extra parameters that have been added to the end of that URL.

The issue here is one of URL rewriting. Many pages get invoked with extra stuff tacked on to the end of the URL, such as:

www.mypage.php?extra_parm1=1&extra_parm2=5

I would like to figure out how to get at the main URL (www.mypage.php) and the "extra_parm1" and "extra_parm2" values that have been tacked onto the end of the main URL (www.mypage.php). Is there some sort of built in function in PHP that can get at each of these values as a string, or in some other way?

Any and all help MUCH appreciated. Thanks.

devinemke

have a look at $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']

mac57

Thanks, I will try that.

I have also heard something about "hidden forms". Is there a chance the the extra_parm1 and extra_parm2 in the example above are perhaps pre parsed into variables like $_POST[...] or some such?

In general, is there an EASY way to tack additional variables onto the end of page URLs and then extract them simply elsewhere, so that I can pass information around from page to page without needing to uses cookies or the $GLOBALS variable?

dagon

mac57;10895329 wrote:
In general, is there an EASY way to tack additional variables onto the end of page URLs and then extract them simply elsewhere, so that I can pass information around from page to page without needing to uses cookies or the $GLOBALS variable?

sessions

mac57

Interesting... care to expand on that answer a little? I did check the section on sessions in my PHP book, but it was not obvious how it resolved this particular problem. The same book mentioned URL Rewriting (with the extra parms at the end) as the best approach for simple passing of information from page to page but then completely failed to explain how to access those extra parms on the receiving page.

Thanks.

dagon

you can just write what variables you need in to the session array, and retrieve it on another page, let php work out how to pass the id between pages.

mac57

Thanks all - I will have a run at these ideas and see how they work.

mac57

mac57;10895327 wrote:
I am a PHP newbie. I am trying to figure out how to query and get the URL that invoked your page and any of the extra parameters that have been added to the end of that URL.

The issue here is one of URL rewriting. Many pages get invoked with extra stuff tacked on to the end of the URL, such as:

www.mypage.php?extra_parm1=1&extra_parm2=5

I would like to figure out how to get at the main URL (www.mypage.php) and the "extra_parm1" and "extra_parm2" values that have been tacked onto the end of the main URL (www.mypage.php). Is there some sort of built in function in PHP that can get at each of these values as a string, or in some other way?

Any and all help MUCH appreciated. Thanks.

Hi All, I thought I would post the solution for the benefit of other newbies like me.

Getting at the extra_parm values turns out to be pretty simple, without the need of any more complex structures like sessions.

When they are encoded per the above:

www.mypage.php?extra_parm1=1&extra_parm2=5

the receiving page (www.mypage.php) can access them as:

$GET['extra_parm1'] and $GET['extra_parm2']

I have tested this an it works on both PHP 4.4.8 and on PHP 5.2.6.

Hope this helps!

dagon

sessions is the answer for "so that I can pass information around from page to page without needing to uses cookies or the $GLOBALS variable?" not for getting the vars added to a url

nrg_alpha

Here is my take:

$str = 'www.mypage.php?extra_parm1=1&extra_parm2=5';
echo $str . '<br />';
$parsed = parse_url($str);
if($parsed[query]){
   $arr = preg_split('#&#', $parsed[query], -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
   array_unshift($arr, $parsed[path]);
   echo '<pre>'.print_r($arr, true);
}

Output:

www.mypage.php?extra_parm1=1&extra_parm2=5

Array
(
    [0] => www.mypage.php
    [1] => extra_parm1=1
    [2] => extra_parm2=5
)

dagon

nrg_alpha;10895487 wrote:
Here is my take:

😕 what's wrong with just using the $_GET array?

nrg_alpha

I'm just using $str as an example the OP used.. sure.. suppose you can use $GET. I may be wrong (and feel free to correct me if I am), but would you not still need to parse $GET to get your path, query variables, etc?

EDIT- I suppose one could also work with $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']?