Question

What is the best way to create member profiles in PHP? For instance, some websites read in the address bar: profile.php?id=11233 and then profile.php?id=13563. How is this actually done? As of now, I am saving such types of URL’s in MySQL, but where will I write the actual code? Will I have to write the code in profile.php? Or will I have to make separate files for each id? How does it work?

Answer 1

Will I have to write the code in
profile.php?

Yes. Visitors will be visiting profile.php and there will be a default variable set named $_GET['id'] that has the value in the URL, like 11233 or 13563. You can then query the database for the user with that id and display the proper information.

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If there is more than one variable, like profile.php?id=123&type=cake, then you will have two variables: $_GET['id'] = 123, $_GET['type'] = 'cake'. It is stored in $_GET because GET is the method used to access the page. Find out more at http://php.net/get

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There is also another common method, called POST. This is used when forms are submitted with method=POST. In that case, the information will be stored in the $_POST array.