http://www.phpreferencebook.com/?variable=value&name=Mario%20Lurig&gender=male%21

or

http://www.phpreferencebook.com/?variable=value&name=Mario Lurig&gender=male!

1. Display the whole string (everything after the question mark)

• <?php echo $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']; ?>

• variable=value&name=Mario%20Lurig&gender=male

2. Display the whole string decoded (convert %## to original characters)

• <?php echo urldecode($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']); ?>

• variable=value&name=Mario Lurig&gender=male!

3. Show each variable and value as an array (already decoded)

• <?php print_r($_GET); ?>

• Array ( [variable] => value [name] => Mario Lurig [gender] => male!

• <?php echo '<pre>'; print_r($_GET); echo '< /pre>'; ?>

• Array
  (
      [variable] => value
      [name] => Mario Lurig
      [gender] => male!
  )
  

There are lots of options from there, so don’t let this be the end of your exploration of how to display a query string value on a page. If you have any great tricks, feel free to share them in the comments below!

The description in the book reads:

$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] – The current scripts path

This description is the same as the entry above, because I made a bad edit (copy/paste for formatting). The correct description would be as follows:

$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] – The current query string (without the question mark)

The example is correct and accurate, and luckily this is painfully obvious thanks to the name of the key QUERY_STRING in the $_SERVER array.