Lesson 10: Passing variables in a URL

How does it work?

Maybe you have wondered why some URLs look something like this:
Why is there a question mark after the page name?
The answer is that the characters after the question mark are an HTTP query string. An HTTP query string can contain both variables and their values. In the example above, the HTTP query string contains a variable named "id", with the value "1254".
Here is another example:
Again, you have a variable ("name") with a value ("jkl").

How to get the variable with PHP?

Let's say you have a PHP page named people.php. Now you can call this page using the following URL:
With PHP, you will be able to get the value of the variable 'name' like this:
So, you use $_GET to find the value of a named variable. Let's try it in an example:
When you look at the example above, try to replace the name "Joe" with your own name in the URL and then call the document again! Quite nice, eh?

Several variables in the same URL

You are not limited to pass only one variable in a URL. By separating the variables with &, multiple variables can be passed:
This URL contains two variables: name and age. In the same way as above, you can get the variables like this:
Let's add the extra variable to the example: