What's the difference between $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] and $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']?

Question

I have a php framework and I used $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] to optimize portability. That way I don't need to manually configure the path anymore.

$this->base_url = str_replace('index.php', '', 'http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']);

But I noticed that $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] and $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] returns the exact same string. So, what's the difference? How should I choose between them?

Answer 1

Difference

http://sandbox.phpcode.eu/g/3e38d.php/test

Script name is absolute path to file.

PHP_SELF is script you're currently in (along with "path" after .php)

It's like $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] and $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']

http://sandbox.phpcode.eu./g/f5093.php

http://sandbox.phpcode.eu/g/f5093.php

spot one difference

Answer 2

SCRIPT_NAME

Contains the current script's path. This is useful for pages which need to point to themselves. The __FILE__ constant contains the full path and filename of the current (i.e. included) file.

PHP_SELF

The filename of the currently executing script, relative to the document root. For instance, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] in a script at the address http://example.com/test.php/foo.bar would be /test.php/foo.bar. The __FILE__ constant contains the full path and filename of the current (i.e. included) file. If PHP is running as a command-line processor this variable contains the script name since PHP 4.3.0. Previously it was not available.

source php.net

There is one thing:

Check out http://www.yoursite.com/example/index.php/dir/test

in $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] == '/example/index.php/dir/test';

in $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] == '/example/index.php';

ETA: Tried myself

Tried this on localhost http://127.0.0.1:8887/index.php/dir/test

echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . "<br />";
echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];

Output is:

/index.php/dir/test 
/index.php