Hello,

Is it normal for $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERERE'] to return the value of the previous url and not the one you'r on at the moment?

I have a page that contains links on the left column, each link targets the same page but adds another query to the url. => thus I redraw the same page but with another query.
Then some lines further in the script, it should go looking for this query in the string using $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] to get the CURRENT url and then run a function that takes this query as a parameter to show a photo with the name of this query.
That is, it should do so but for some reason, the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] variable seems to hold the url of the previous page and thus doesn't show the photo I want but the one I clicked before.

part of my code: (it's part of a class category)

public function showMe() {
$url = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']; echo "url: $url <br/>";
$urlvals = parse_url($url);
$url = $urlvals['scheme'] . '://' . $urlvals['host'] . ':' . $urlvals['port'];
$url .= $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; echo "url: $url <br/>";
echo "<div id=\"leftcolumn\">";
$this->showPhotoLinkList($url);
echo "</div>";
echo "<div id=\"categories\">";
//$this->showPhoto("duiken1");
$url2 = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
echo "url2: $url2 <br/>";
$vals = parse_url($url2);
if (isset($vals['query'])) {
$nm = $vals['query'];
echo "$nm <br/>";
//show the photo in the query
$pos = strpos($nm, '=');
$nm = substr($nm, ++$pos);
echo "$nm <br/>";
$this->showPhoto($nm);
}
echo "</div>";
}

The function gets called from an index page like:
$categ = new category($nm);
$categ->showMe();


Left I have links to photo1, photo2, photo3 (actually links to the same page but with a different query containing the name of the photo)
I open the page 1st time and have the url "http://lieven.isa-geek.net:8123/~lieven/categorytest.php"
I click on the link to the 1st photo (or the second or ...) and I get the url: "http://lieven.isa-geek.net:8123/~lieven/categorytest.php?photo=duik1" but HTTP_REFERER still shows the first one. I click again on a link and it shows the url with that query but then HTTP_REFERER contains the ".../photo=duik1" which is thus the previous one.

Is this normal?

Yes.. the referer is where "you came from"

PS: If you read Slashdot you'll note that some servers check if your referer is slashdot.org so it stops you to load the page to avoid a flood on the server (any user with some knowledge will solve this in some secs anyway...

heh, I know /. I have seen those poor bastards being /.etted. and thus being knocked of the net by.. let's call it a DDOS attack. But not with bad intentions ofcourse. (Not like the bastard kids who do this things for fun)

But how can I refer to the current url? Maybe via headers_sent() or something alike? Problem with this headers is that they should be sent before any output is sent to the browser. (I think)

Any hints?

Maybe possible with $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ? I try with that but then I don't have the 'scheme', 'host' and 'port' ? not even the 'query'...

I'll have to combo these three:
PHP_SELF : /dir/foo.php
QUERY_STRING : fruit=apple&color=red
REQUEST_URI : /dir/foo.php?fruit=apple&color=red

regds

$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] will tell you the current page. I don't know what you mean by don't having the scheme host and port, maybe this page can help you: http://ar2.php.net/reserved.variables

EDIT: Well seems you found the combo, good luck

thanks for your patience, I did not look good enough...

You may want to store the previous page URL as an input type and send that to next page with form after that use that to return to previous page x 2