Variables
Server configuration and request information—including form parameters and cookies—are accessible in three different ways from your PHP scripts, as described in this section. Collectively, this information is referred to as EGPCS (environment, GET, POST, cookies, and server).
If the register_globals
option
in php.ini is enabled (it is
disabled by default), PHP creates a separate global variable for every
form parameter, every piece of request information, and every server
configuration value. This functionality is convenient but dangerous, as
it lets the browser provide initial values for any of the variables in
your program. The (negative) effects this can have on your program’s
security are explained in Chapter
12.
Regardless of the setting of register_globals
, PHP creates six global
arrays that contain the EGPCS information.
The global arrays are:
$_COOKIE
Contains any cookie values passed as part of the request, where the keys of the array are the names of the cookies
$_GET
Contains any parameters that are part of a GET request, where the keys of the array are the names of the form parameters
$_POST
Contains any parameters that are part of a POST request, where the keys of the array are the names of the form parameters
$_FILES
Contains information about any uploaded files
$_SERVER
Contains useful information about the web server, as described in the next section
$_ENV
Contains the values of any environment variables, where the keys of the array are the names of the environment ...
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