How do you capture the dynamic data that comes in with a URL?

[Ray Ward]

I'm trying to capture the dynamic data that comes in with the URL and put them into variables and then store them in my database.
Following line is the disguised Url with the data.
http://xxxxxx.net/xxxxxxxx/xxxxxx/xxxxxx.htm?lat=36.3&long=-115.2625

The data is:
'lat' value = 36.3 (this will be stored in a varchar(10) field in the database. (field is for latitude)
'long' value = -115.2625 (this will be stored in a varchar(10) field in the database. (field is for longitude)

The form is working fine but I can't seem to capture this data from the url.
I have searched the web and I'm starting to go crazy and was hoping you could help.

I have attached my 'index.php' file with my mods all marked with //custom so you could see what I was trying to do.

Any help that you could give me would really be appreciated.

Looking forward to your reply

Thank you

Ray Ward

[JKing]

Hi there,

It looks like you are accessing it properly through $_GET.

Are you receiving any errors?

[Ray Ward]

No errors.
All other data on form is being correctly stored into my database, only the 'lat' & 'long, fields are not being stored.
I even looked at the url and the 'lat' and 'long' fields were present.
This is really puzzling
If you have any other ideas please let me know.
Thanks for the reply
Ray

[JKing]

Just to clarify, are the $lat and $lang variables being populated and just not being inserted in the database or are the variables set to empty strings?

[Ray Ward]

variables are set to empty strings.
I found this out by using the print & echo cmds.
The rest of my variables are coming from a form the customer completes on his smart phone and the 'lat', 'long' fields are added by his cell phone to the end of the url.

[majorarcanum]

If the URL has been directly manipulated programmatically, you will not find the variables in the GET array:

You must then extract it yourself from the URL (accessed with $current_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];). The following code is not mine. It extracts the pseudo-variables from the URL and assigns them to name, value pairs in an array:

// Found at http://www.logon2.com.au/blog/archive/coding/coding-php/extract-get-variables-
//...from-url-string-to-array-php-function */                 function getVariableFromUrl($url)
{
//we need to see if this URL is passing any GET variables
$variablesStart = strpos($url, "?") + 1;
if (!$variablesStart)
{
// no variables!
return(false);
}
//before we extract the variables, we need to remove any anchors
$variablesEnd = strpos($url,"#",$variablesStart);
if ($variablesEnd)
{
$getVariables = substr($url, $variablesStart, $variablesEnd - $variablesStart);
}
else
{
$getVariables = substr($url, $variablesStart);
}
//next, we split the URL into an arrays containing variable name and value pairs (ie. "variable=value")
$variableArray = explode("&", $getVariables);
//we will iterate through each of the array pairs (ie. "variable=value")
foreach ($variableArray as $arraySet)
{
$nameAndValue = explode("=", $arraySet);
//using the above examples, $nameAndValue[0] would be "variable" and $nameAndValue[1] would be "value"
$output[$nameAndValue[0]] = urldecode($nameAndValue[1]);
}
return($output);
}