Passing parameter to php page without form

Question

I am new to PHP.

I have a page that displays user profile. I need to pass user id to this page so that correct profile was displayed.

I just dont use the <form> element. I want to have a link

<a href="/users/24378234298734"> or <a href="/users/?id=24378234298734"> or whatever

Since I am not using form I cannot use _GET or _POST on the handler page What is the best way to handle the parameters on handler page?

Answer 1

A form with method="GET" is just a way to build a query string automatically based on user input. Nothing prevents you using $_GET to read data from a manually constructed query string (and the server can't tell the difference anyway).

<a href="/users/?id=24378234298734"> will cause $_GET['id'] to be populated.

Answer 2

If you have a link somewhere like

<a href="/users.php?id=24378234298734">User XY</a>

and you put this code on users.php:

echo 'Hello '.$_REQUEST['id']; // $_REQUEST catches $_GET and $_POST

you will be able to set up a user page for user number 24378234298734.