PHP Questions

Both GET and POST are used to collect data from a form. However, when security is desired $_POST should be used. When the $_ POST variable is used, all variables used are NOT displayed in the URL. Also, they have no restrictions to the length of the variables. GET should be used when the interaction with the form is more like a question. For e.g. firing a query etc. POST should be used more often when the interaction is more like an order or the interaction changes the state of the resource.

POST example:

<form action="sample.php" method="post">

Name: <input type="text" name="name" />

Age: <input type="text" name="age" />

<input type="submit" />

</form>

On clicking submit the URL resembles to: https://www.mysamplesite.com/sample.php

The sample.php file can be used for catching the form data using $_POST 

Hello <?php echo $_POST["name"]; ?>.<br />

You are <?php echo $_POST["age"]; ?> years old!

GET EXAMPLE

<form action="sample.php" method="get">

Name: <input type="text" name="name" />

Age: <input type="text" name="age" />

<input type="submit" />

</form>

On clicking submit the URL resembles to : https://www.mysamplesite.com/sample.php?name=jim&age=37

The sample.php file can be used for catching the form data using $_GET 

Hello <?php echo $_GET["name"]; ?>.<br />

You are <?php echo $_GET["age"]; ?> years old!

To access the global data which is originating externally, the super globals are used. The superglobals are available as arrays. These superglobals represents the data from URLs, HTML forms, cookies, sessions and also the web server. For this purpose, $HTTP_GET_VARS, $HTTP_POST_VARS are used. The super globals are pretty good enough to be used in functions. The following are the list of super globals.

$_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE;$_REQUEST, $_SERVER, $_SESSION, $_ENV, $_FILE

Another PHP Superglobal, called $GLOBALS; is available for persisting every variable with global scope.

PHP’s configuration file is called php.ini.