Web Server Information in $

PHP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Retrieving Information from HTTP Requests

∟Web Server Information in $_SERVER

This section provides a tutorial example on how to dump Web server information stored in the $_SERVER array.

Now, let's run HttpRequestDetails.php on the local Apache Web server. First copy HttpRequestDetails.php to \apache\htdocs, then run Internet Explorer (IE) with http://localhost/HttpRequestDetails.php. You should get:

Contents of $_GET:

Contents of $_POST:

Contents of $_COOKIE:

Contents of $_REQUEST:

Contents of $_SERVER:
   REDIRECT_HANDLER = application/x-httpd-php
   REDIRECT_STATUS = 200
   HTTP_HOST = localhost
   HTTP_CONNECTION = keep-alive
   HTTP_UPGRADE_INSECURE_REQUESTS = 1
   HTTP_REFERER = http://localhost/
   HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING = gzip, deflate, br
   HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE = en-US,en;q=0.9
   SystemRoot = C:\windows
   COMSPEC = C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
   PATHEXT = .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
   WINDIR = C:\windows
   SERVER_SIGNATURE =
   SERVER_SOFTWARE = Apache/2.4.37 (Win64)
   SERVER_NAME = localhost
   SERVER_ADDR = ::1
   SERVER_PORT = 80
   REMOTE_ADDR = ::1
   DOCUMENT_ROOT = C:/apache/htdocs
   ......

Note that $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, and $_REQUEST are still all empty, because HTTP request contains no information submitted using the GET or POST method. And there are no cookies in the HTTP request.

However, other information contained in the HTTP request and gathered from the Web server is stored in the $_SERVER array now. For example, "DOCUMENT_ROOT = c:/apache/htdocs" is piece of information from the Web server telling us that the Web server picks up HTTP documents and scripts from the c:/apache/htdocs directory.