http_build_query
rawurldecode
URL Functions
PHP Manual

# parse_url

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

parse_url — Parse a URL and return its components

### Description

mixed parse_url ( string `$url` [, int `$component` = -1 ] )

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. Invalid characters are replaced by _.

`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 (except when `PHP_URL_PORT` is given, in which case the return value will be an integer).

### Return Values

On seriously malformed URLs, parse_url() may return `FALSE`.

If the `component` parameter is omitted, an associative array is returned. At least one element will be present within the array. Potential keys within this array are:

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

If the `component` parameter is specified, parse_url() returns a string (or an integer, in the case of `PHP_URL_PORT`) instead of an array. If the requested component doesn't exist within the given URL, `NULL` will be returned.

### Changelog

Version | Description
--- | ---
5.4.7 | Fixed host recognition when scheme is omitted and a leading component separator is present.
5.3.3 | Removed the `E_WARNING` that was emitted when URL parsing failed.
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

Example #2 A parse_url() example with missing scheme

`<?php
$url = '//www.example.com/path?googleguy=googley';
// Prior to 5.4.7 this would show the path as "//www.example.com/path"
var_dump(parse_url($url));
?>`

The above example will output:

    array(3) {
      ["host"]=>
      string(15) "www.example.com"
      ["path"]=>
      string(5) "/path"
      ["query"]=>
      string(17) "googleguy=googley"
    }

### 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 triple slashes (file:///...) are allowed. For any other scheme this is invalid.

### See Also

- pathinfo() - Returns information about a file path
- parse_str() - Parses the string into variables
- http_build_query() - Generate URL-encoded query string
- http_build_url() - Build a URL
- dirname() - Returns parent directory's path
- basename() - Returns trailing name component of path
- » RFC 3986

http_build_query
rawurldecode
URL Functions
PHP Manual