Last updated: Fri, 27 Jun 2008

parse_url

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

parse_url — Parse a URL and return its components

Description

mixed parse_url ( string $url [, int $component ] )

This function parses a URL and returns an associative array containing any of the various components of the URL that are present.

This function is not meant to validate the given URL, it only breaks it up into the above listed parts. Partial URLs are also accepted, parse_url() tries its best to parse them correctly.

Parameters

url: The URL to parse

component: Specify one of PHP_URL_SCHEME, PHP_URL_HOST, PHP_URL_PORT, PHP_URL_USER, PHP_URL_PASS, PHP_URL_PATH, PHP_URL_QUERY or PHP_URL_FRAGMENT to retrieve just a specific URL component as a string.

Return Values

On seriously malformed URLs, parse_url() may return FALSE and emit a E_WARNING. Otherwise an associative array is returned, whose components may be (at least one):

scheme - e.g. http
host
port
user
pass
path
query - after the question mark ?
fragment - after the hashmark #

If the component parameter is specified a string is returned instead of an array.

ChangeLog

Version	Description
5.1.2	Added the `component` parameter

Examples

Example #1 A parse_url() example


<?php
$url = 'http://username:password@hostname/path?arg=value#anchor';

print_r(parse_url($url));

echo parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
?>

The above example will output:

Array
(
    [scheme] => http
    [host] => hostname
    [user] => username
    [pass] => password
    [path] => /path
    [query] => arg=value
    [fragment] => anchor
)
/path

Notes

Note: This function doesn't work with relative URLs.

Note: This function is intended specifically for the purpose of parsing URLs and not URIs. However, to comply with PHP's backwards compatibility requirements it makes an exception for the file:// scheme where tripple slashes (file:///...) are allowed. For any other scheme this is invalid.


based on the "laulibrius at hotmail dot com" function, this work for relatives url only:



<?php

function parseUrl($url) {

$r = "^(?:(?P<path>[\.\w/]*/)?";

$r .= "(?P<file>\w+(?:\.\w+)?)?)\.(?P<extension>\w+)?";

$r .= "(?:\?(?P<arg>[\w=&]+))?";

$r .= "(?:#(?P<anchor>\w+))?";

$r = "!$r!";



preg_match ( $r, $url, $out );

return $out;

}



print_r(parseUrl("../test/f.aq.php?p=1&v=blabla#X1"));



?>



returns:

Array

(

    [0] => ../test/faq.php?p=1&v=blabla#X1

    [path] => ../test/

    [1] => ../test/

    [file] => faq

    [2] => faq

    [extension] => php

    [3] => php

    [arg] => p=1&v=blabla

    [4] => p=1&v=blabla

    [anchor] => X1

    [5] => X1

)

laulibrius at hotmail dot com
16-Jun-2008 05:31


There was one thing missing in the function dropped by "to1ne at hotmail dot com" when i tried it : domain and subdomain couldn't have a dash "-". So i add it in the regexp and the function looks like this now :



<?php

    function parseUrl($url) {

        $r  = "^(?:(?P<scheme>\w+)://)?";

        $r .= "(?:(?P<login>\w+):(?P<pass>\w+)@)?";

        $r .= "(?P<host>(?:(?P<subdomain>[-\w\.]+)\.)?" . "(?P<domain>[-\w]+\.(?P<extension>\w+)))";

        $r .= "(?::(?P<port>\d+))?";

        $r .= "(?P<path>[\w/]*/(?P<file>\w+(?:\.\w+)?)?)?";

        $r .= "(?:\?(?P<arg>[\w=&]+))?";

        $r .= "(?:#(?P<anchor>\w+))?";

        $r = "!$r!";                                                // Delimiters

       

        preg_match ( $r, $url, $out );

       

        return $out;

    }

?>



Btw, thanks for the function, it helps me a lot.

to1ne at hotmail dot com
13-Jun-2008 07:01


Based on the idea of "jbr at ya-right dot com" have I been working on a new function to parse the url:



<?php

function parseUrl($url) {

    $r  = "^(?:(?P<scheme>\w+)://)?";

    $r .= "(?:(?P<login>\w+):(?P<pass>\w+)@)?";

    $r .= "(?P<host>(?:(?P<subdomain>[\w\.]+)\.)?" . "(?P<domain>\w+\.(?P<extension>\w+)))";

    $r .= "(?::(?P<port>\d+))?";

    $r .= "(?P<path>[\w/]*/(?P<file>\w+(?:\.\w+)?)?)?";

    $r .= "(?:\?(?P<arg>[\w=&]+))?";

    $r .= "(?:#(?P<anchor>\w+))?";

    $r = "!$r!";                                                // Delimiters

    

    preg_match ( $r, $url, $out );

    

    return $out;

}

print_r ( parseUrl ( 'me:you@sub.site.org:29000/pear/validate.html?happy=me&sad=you#url' ) );

?>



This returns:

Array

(

    [0] => me:you@sub.site.org:29000/pear/validate.html?happy=me&sad=you#url

    [scheme] => 

    [1] => 

    [login] => me

    [2] => me

    [pass] => you

    [3] => you

    [host] => sub.site.org

    [4] => sub.site.org

    [subdomain] => sub

    [5] => sub

    [domain] => site.org

    [6] => site.org

    [extension] => org

    [7] => org

    [port] => 29000

    [8] => 29000

    [path] => /pear/validate.html

    [9] => /pear/validate.html

    [file] => validate.html

    [10] => validate.html

    [arg] => happy=me&sad=you

    [11] => happy=me&sad=you

    [anchor] => url

    [12] => url

)



So both named and numbered array keys are possible.



It's quite advanced, but I think it works in any case... Let me know if it doesn't...

jbr at ya-right dot com
03-May-2008 04:24


This function never works the way you think it should...



Example....



<?php



print_r ( parse_url ( 'me:you@sub.site.org/pear/validate.html?happy=me&sad=you#url' ) );



?>



Returns...



Array

(

    [scheme] => me

    [path] => you@sub.site.org/pear/validate.html

    [query] => happy=me&sad=you

    [fragment] => url

)



Here my way of doing parse_url



<?php



function parseUrl ( $url )

{

    $r  = '!(?:(\w+)://)?(?:(\w+)\:(\w+)@)?([^/:]+)?';

    $r .= '(?:\:(\d*))?([^#?]+)?(?:\?([^#]+))?(?:#(.+$))?!i';



    preg_match ( $r, $url, $out );



    return $out;

}



print_r ( parseUrl ( 'me:you@sub.site.org/pear/validate.html?happy=me&sad=you#url' ) );



?>



Returns...



Array

(

    [0] => me:you@sub.site.org/pear/validate.html?happy=me&sad=you#url

    [1] => 

    [2] => me

    [3] => you

    [4] => sub.site.org

    [5] => 

    [6] => /pear/validate.html

    [7] => happy=me&sad=you

    [8] => url

)



Where as...



out[0] = full url

out[1] = scheme or '' if no scheme was found

out[2] = username or '' if no auth username was found

out[3] = password or '' if no auth password was found

out[4] = domain name or '' if no domain name was found

out[5] = port number or '' if no port number was found

out[6] = path or '' if no path was found

out[7] = query or '' if no query was found

out[8] = fragment or '' if no fragment was found

Nicolas Merlet - admin(at)merletn.org
14-Mar-2008 03:05


Please note that parse_url seems not to produce always the same results when passing non-standard urls.



Eg. I was using this code since 2005 (both under PHP 4.3.10 and PHP 5.2.3) :



<?php



  $p = parse_url ( 'http://domain.tld/tcp://domain2.tld/dir/file' ) ;



  $d2 = parse_url ( $p['path'] ) ;



  echo $d2 ;  // returns '/dir/file'



?>



Of course my example is very specific, as URL is not really correct. But using parse_url was a great trick to split URL easily (without using regular expressions).



Unfortunately under PHP 5.2.0-8 (+etch10), parse_url will fail as it does not accept the slash (/) at the beginning of URL.



Here is a possible patch :



<?php



  $p = parse_url ( 'http://domain.tld/tcp://domain2.tld/dir/file' ) ;



  $d2 = parse_url ( substr ( $p['path'] , 1 ) ) ;



  echo $d2 ;  // returns '/dir/file'



?>



However this last code is not optimized at all, and should be replaced by a regular expression to split URL (so that parse_url would be no longer used).



So you should use parse_url very carefully, and verify that you pass only standard URLs...

Nick Smith
05-Sep-2007 10:32


Note that older versions of PHP (e.g., 4.1) returned an blank string as the path for URLs without any path, such as http://www.php.net



However more recent versions of PHP (e.g., 4.4.7) don't set the path element in the array, so old code will get a PHP warning about an undefined index.

Michael Muryn
27-Aug-2007 04:51


Another update to the glue_url function: applied the "isset" treatment to $parsed['pass'].



<?php

function glue_url($parsed)

{

    if (!is_array($parsed)) return false;

    $uri = isset($parsed['scheme']) ? $parsed['scheme'].':'.((strtolower($parsed['scheme']) == 'mailto') ? '' : '//') : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['user']) ? $parsed['user'].(isset($parsed['pass']) ? ':'.$parsed['pass'] : '').'@' : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['host']) ? $parsed['host'] : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['port']) ? ':'.$parsed['port'] : '';

    if(isset($parsed['path']))

    {

        $uri .= (substr($parsed['path'], 0, 1) == '/') ? $parsed['path'] : ('/'.$parsed['path']);

    }

    $uri .= isset($parsed['query']) ? '?'.$parsed['query'] : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['fragment']) ? '#'.$parsed['fragment'] : '';

    return $uri;

}

?>

stevenlewis at hotmail dot com
13-Aug-2007 11:08


an update to the glue url function.



you are able to put a host and a path without a slash at the beginning of the path



<?php

function glue_url($parsed) 

    {

    if (! is_array($parsed)) return false;

    $uri = isset($parsed['scheme']) ? $parsed['scheme'].':'.((strtolower($parsed['scheme']) == 'mailto') ? '':'//'): '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['user']) ? $parsed['user'].($parsed['pass']? ':'.$parsed['pass']:'').'@':'';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['host']) ? $parsed['host'] : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['port']) ? ':'.$parsed['port'] : '';

    if(isset($parsed['path']))

        {

        $uri .= (substr($parsed['path'],0,1) == '/')?$parsed['path']:'/'.$parsed['path'];

        }

    $uri .= isset($parsed['query']) ? '?'.$parsed['query'] : '';

    $uri .= isset($parsed['fragment']) ? '#'.$parsed['fragment'] : '';

    return $uri;

    }

?>

spam at paulisageek dot com
08-Aug-2007 08:05


In reply to adrian,



Thank you very much for your function. There is a small issue with your relative protocol function. You need to remove the // when making the url the path. Here is the new function.



function resolve_url($base, $url) {

        if (!strlen($base)) return $url;

        // Step 2

        if (!strlen($url)) return $base;

        // Step 3

        if (preg_match('!^[a-z]+:!i', $url)) return $url;

        $base = parse_url($base);

        if ($url{0} == "#") {

                // Step 2 (fragment)

                $base['fragment'] = substr($url, 1);

                return unparse_url($base);

        }

        unset($base['fragment']);

        unset($base['query']);

        if (substr($url, 0, 2) == "//") {

                // Step 4

                return unparse_url(array(

                        'scheme'=>$base['scheme'],

                        'path'=>substr($url,2),

                ));

        } else if ($url{0} == "/") {

                // Step 5

                $base['path'] = $url;

        } else {

                // Step 6

                $path = explode('/', $base['path']);

                $url_path = explode('/', $url);

                // Step 6a: drop file from base

                array_pop($path);

                // Step 6b, 6c, 6e: append url while removing "." and ".." from

                // the directory portion

                $end = array_pop($url_path);

                foreach ($url_path as $segment) {

                        if ($segment == '.') {

                                // skip

                        } else if ($segment == '..' && $path && $path[sizeof($path)-1] != '..') {

                                array_pop($path);

                        } else {

                                $path[] = $segment;

                        }

                }

                // Step 6d, 6f: remove "." and ".." from file portion

                if ($end == '.') {

                        $path[] = '';

                } else if ($end == '..' && $path && $path[sizeof($path)-1] != '..') {

                        $path[sizeof($path)-1] = '';

                } else {

                        $path[] = $end;

                }

                // Step 6h

                $base['path'] = join('/', $path);



        }

        // Step 7

        return unparse_url($base);

}

christian at resource-it dot dk
03-Aug-2007 08:57


I searched for an implementation of rfc3986, which is a newer version of rfc 2392. I may find it here : <http://www.chrsen.dk/fundanemt/files/scripter/php/misc/rfc3986.php> - read the rfc at <http://rfc.net/rfc3986.html>

adrian-php at sixfingeredman dot net
25-Jul-2007 10:58


Here's a function which implements resolving a relative URL according to RFC 2396 section 5.2. No doubt there are more efficient implementations, but this one tries to remain close to the standard for clarity. It relies on a function called "unparse_url" to implement section 7, left as an exercise for the reader (or you can substitute the "glue_url" function posted earlier).



<?php

/**

 * Resolve a URL relative to a base path. This happens to work with POSIX

 * filenames as well. This is based on RFC 2396 section 5.2.

 */

function resolve_url($base, $url) {

        if (!strlen($base)) return $url;

        // Step 2

        if (!strlen($url)) return $base;

        // Step 3

        if (preg_match('!^[a-z]+:!i', $url)) return $url;

        $base = parse_url($base);

        if ($url{0} == "#") {

                // Step 2 (fragment)

                $base['fragment'] = substr($url, 1);

                return unparse_url($base);

        }

        unset($base['fragment']);

        unset($base['query']);

        if (substr($url, 0, 2) == "//") {

                // Step 4

                return unparse_url(array(

                        'scheme'=>$base['scheme'],

                        'path'=>$url,

                ));

        } else if ($url{0} == "/") {

                // Step 5

                $base['path'] = $url;

        } else {

                // Step 6

                $path = explode('/', $base['path']);

                $url_path = explode('/', $url);

                // Step 6a: drop file from base

                array_pop($path);

                // Step 6b, 6c, 6e: append url while removing "." and ".." from

                // the directory portion

                $end = array_pop($url_path);

                foreach ($url_path as $segment) {

                        if ($segment == '.') {

                                // skip

                        } else if ($segment == '..' && $path && $path[sizeof($path)-1] != '..') {

                                array_pop($path);

                        } else {

                                $path[] = $segment;

                        }

                }

                // Step 6d, 6f: remove "." and ".." from file portion

                if ($end == '.') {

                        $path[] = '';

                } else if ($end == '..' && $path && $path[sizeof($path)-1] != '..') {

                        $path[sizeof($path)-1] = '';

                } else {

                        $path[] = $end;

                }

                // Step 6h

                $base['path'] = join('/', $path);



        }

        // Step 7

        return unparse_url($base);

}

?>

Antti Haapala
17-Jul-2007 09:42


Actually the behaviour noticed by the previous poster is quite correct. When the URI scheme is not present, it is plain wrong to assume that something starting with www. is a domain name, and that the scheme is HTTP. Internet Explorer does it that way, sure, but it does not make it any more correct. The documentation says that the function tries to decode the URL as well as it can, and the only sensible and standards-compliant way to decode such URL is to expect it to be a relative URI.

Elliott Brueggeman
03-Jun-2007 11:59


Note that if you pass this function a url without a scheme (www.php.net, as opposed to http://www.php.net), the function will incorrectly parse the results. In my test case it returned the domain under the ['path'] element and nothing in the ['host'] element.

Marc-Antoine Ross
14-Mar-2007 04:10


Do not look for the fragment in $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], you will not find it. You should read the fragment in JavaScript for example.

alistair at 21degrees dot com dot au
24-Oct-2006 03:21


Heres a simple function to add the $component option in for PHP4. Haven't done exhaustive testing, but should work ok.



<?php



    ## Defines only available in PHP 5, created for PHP4

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_SCHEME')) define('PHP_URL_SCHEME', 1);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_HOST')) define('PHP_URL_HOST', 2);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_PORT')) define('PHP_URL_PORT', 3);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_USER')) define('PHP_URL_USER', 4);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_PASS')) define('PHP_URL_PASS', 5);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_PATH')) define('PHP_URL_PATH', 6);

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_QUERY')) define('PHP_URL_QUERY', 7);                        

    if(!defined('PHP_URL_FRAGMENT')) define('PHP_URL_FRAGMENT', 8);    

    

    function parse_url_compat($url, $component=NULL){

        

        if(!$component) return parse_url($url);

        

        ## PHP 5

        if(phpversion() >= 5)

            return parse_url($url, $component);



        ## PHP 4

        $bits = parse_url($url);

        

        switch($component){

            case PHP_URL_SCHEME: return $bits['scheme'];

            case PHP_URL_HOST: return $bits['host'];

            case PHP_URL_PORT: return $bits['port'];

            case PHP_URL_USER: return $bits['user'];

            case PHP_URL_PASS: return $bits['pass'];

            case PHP_URL_PATH: return $bits['path'];

            case PHP_URL_QUERY: return $bits['query'];

            case PHP_URL_FRAGMENT: return $bits['fragment'];

        }

        

    }



?>

dawalama at gmail dot com
04-Oct-2006 05:48


With few modifications 





    /**


     * source: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-url.php#60237


     * Edit the Query portion of an url


     *


     * @param    string    $action    ethier a "+" or a "-" depending on what action you want to perform


     * @param    mixed    $var    array (+) or string (-)


     * @param    string    $uri    the URL to use. if this is left out, it uses $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']


     * @version      1.0.0


     */


    function change_query($action, $var = NULL, $uri = NULL) {





               if (($action == "+" && !is_array($var)) || ($action == "-" && $var == "") || $var == NULL) {


                       return FALSE;


               }





               if (is_null($uri)) { //Piece together uri string


                       $beginning = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];


                       $ending = (isset ($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) ? $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] : '';


               } else {


                       $qstart = strpos($uri, '?');


                       if ($qstart === false) {


                               $beginning = $uri; //$ending is '' anyway


                               $ending = "";


                       } else {


                               $beginning = substr($uri, 0, $qstart);


                               $ending = substr($uri, $qstart);


                       }


               }





               $vals = array ();


               $ending = str_replace('?', '', $ending);


               parse_str($ending, $vals);





               switch ($action) {


                       case '+' :


                               $vals[$var[0]] = $var[1];


                               break;


                       case '-' :


                               if (isset ($vals[$var])) {


                                       unset ($vals[$var]);


                               }


                               break;


                       default :


                               break;


               }





               $params = array();


               foreach ($vals as $k => $value) {


                       $params[] = $k."=".urlencode($value);


               }


               $result = $beginning . (count($params) ? '?' . implode("&", $params) : '');


               return $result;


       }

kjensen at nospam dot iaff106 dot com
27-Sep-2006 12:21


Here is a simple extended version of ParseURL().  

I needed to make a link that will be saved off site but point to different file 

than the one creating the link. 



So I needed to get the path without the file name so I could change the

 file name.



Here it is:



<?php

function ParseURLplus($url){

$URLpcs = (parse_url($url));

$PathPcs = explode("/",$URLpcs['path']);

$URLpcs['file'] = end($PathPcs);

unset($PathPcs[key($PathPcs)]);

$URLpcs['dir'] = implode("/",$PathPcs);

return ($URLpcs);

}



$url = 'http://username:password@hostname/path/directory/file.php?arg=

value#anchor';



$URLpcs = ParseURLplus($url);



print_r($URLpcs);

?>



Now I can change the $URLpcs['file'] and then glue itback together to make

 a new url.

corgilabs at SPAM_NO_THANK_YOUgmail dot com
13-Jul-2006 07:59


I hope this is helpful! Cheers!

-eo



<?



# Author: Eric O

# Date: July 13, 2006

# Go Zizou!! :O)



# Creating Automatic Self-Redirect To Secure Version

# of Website as Seen on Paypal and other secure sites

# Changes HTTP to HTTPS



#gets the URI of the script

$url =  $_SERVER['SCRIPT_URI'];



#chops URI into bits BORK BORK BORK

$chopped = parse_url($url);



#HOST and PATH portions of your final destination

$destination = $chopped[host].$chopped[path];



#if you are not HTTPS, then do something about it

if($chopped[scheme] != "https"){



#forwards to HTTP version of URI with secure certificate

header("Location: https://$destination");



exit();



}



?>

php dot net at NOSPAM dot juamei dot com
09-May-2006 12:18


Modfied version of glue_url to avoid error messages if the error_reporting is set high.



function glue_url($parsed) 

{

    if (! is_array($parsed)) return false;

        $uri = isset($parsed['scheme']) ? $parsed['scheme'].':'.((strtolower($parsed['scheme']) == 'mailto') ? '':'//'): '';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['user']) ? $parsed['user'].($parsed['pass']? ':'.$parsed['pass']:'').'@':'';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['host']) ? $parsed['host'] : '';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['port']) ? ':'.$parsed['port'] : '';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['path']) ? $parsed['path'] : '';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['query']) ? '?'.$parsed['query'] : '';

        $uri .= isset($parsed['fragment']) ? '#'.$parsed['fragment'] : '';

    return $uri;

}

TheShadow
30-Dec-2004 08:36


You may want to check out the PEAR NET_URL class. It provides easy means to manipulate URL strings.



http://pear.php.net/package/Net_URL

matt at cryptography dot com
09-May-2004 09:36


Modified version of glue_url() 


Cox's,Anonimous fucntion





<?php


function glue_url($parsed) { 


   if (! is_array($parsed)) return false;


       $uri = $parsed['scheme'] ? $parsed['scheme'].':'.((strtolower($parsed['scheme']) == 'mailto') ? '':'//'): '';


       $uri .= $parsed['user'] ? $parsed['user'].($parsed['pass']? ':'.$parsed['pass']:'').'@':'';


       $uri .= $parsed['host'] ? $parsed['host'] : '';


       $uri .= $parsed['port'] ? ':'.$parsed['port'] : '';


       $uri .= $parsed['path'] ? $parsed['path'] : '';


       $uri .= $parsed['query'] ? '?'.$parsed['query'] : '';


       $uri .= $parsed['fragment'] ? '#'.$parsed['fragment'] : '';


  return $uri; 


}


?>

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