Question

I want to break down this URL into variables.

http://example.com/user.php?u=38456

I want the value after u=; for example, 38456 or 36491 or some other humeric value.

When I get that value I will put that here:

$url = /* that value */;

function gameStats($url)
{
    $result = file_get_contents('http://www.popre.net/game.php?u='.$url.'');
    $expl = explode('"',$result);
    print_r($expl);
}
gameStats($url);

If I put the URL value in there, it will give me arrays that I will use to show game reports.

Answer 1

You’re looking for parse_url() and parse_str(). Something like this should work:

$url = 'http://popre.net/user.php?u=38456';
parse_str( parse_url( $url, PHP_URL_QUERY), $params);
echo $params['u']; // Outputs 38456

You can see it working in this demo.

To get it in the function, pass it as a parameter and concatenate it within the string:

function gameStats( $u)
{
    $result = file_get_contents('http://popre.net/game.php?u="' . $u . '"');
    $expl = explode('"',$result);
    print_r($expl);
}
gameStats( 38456); // Or gameStats( $params['u']);