HTTP_REFERER

[charlese]

Hi,

Maybe someone has had this problem before? I have written some code to track which site calls a certain php form by checking to see if they are from a predefined URL by using the code

$http_referer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
print ("http_referer is : [$http_referer]");

When I run this from another test site and view the results in my browser all I get is [], but when another person runs it (my code on the same server) his browser has a URL [http://www.hissite.com/test.html]

Is there some setting in the Browser? I figure it can't be a server setting because this works for the other person?

The manual says it is unreliable but what causes it?

Thanks Charles

[Anon]

There are a couple of reasons:

The Refer tag is send by your browser to the server, but...

Some 3rd party apps on your system can strip these off

If you are using a proxy server it can strip them off

If you call the script directly, there is no referer tag sent because it is the 1st page you visited.

Hope that helps but the manual is right, that tag is unreliable.