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PHP Build a Simple PHP Application Adding a Contact Form Working with Get Variables

Christopher Eastridge
Christopher Eastridge
3,819 Points

How does "status" evaluate to "thanks"?

I understand that we are searching $_GET if the status exists first, then we check to see if the "status" == "thanks". Where does "thanks" exist in the code to allow the if statement to execute? I don't understand how "status" can have a value of "thanks" if we didn't declare anything for it.

1 Answer

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

Status was set equal to "thanks" a 00:25 in this video. "Thanks" exists a value in the $_GET array, and is put there by adding "?status=thanks" to the end of a url. When Apache fires up PHP, when a PHP script is requested, it takes anything after a question mark, but before a hash tag, and gives it to PHP to parse. PHP parses the string by taking what is to the left of the equals sign and making that the index of the array and taking what is to the right of the equals sign and making that the value. Hope this helps.

Christopher Eastridge
Christopher Eastridge
3,819 Points

This couldn't have been a better answer. I thought I figured it out a few minutes ago and started to move on. This answer definitely gave me a better understanding of what is actually happening. Thanks for the help!

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

Nope problem, glad I could help.