Posted by Csaba Gabor on 01/09/07 19:26

Does anyone know what the deal is on ORIG_PATH_INFO vs. PATH_INFO?
I use the "real" path_info from the server
(e.g. in http://webcomp.org/index.php/something/else,
the path_info is /something/else) that used to be found in
$_SERVER["PATH_INFO"]

However, under Apache 1.3.37 with a System:
Linux host45.hostmonster.com 2.6.17-11_4.BHsmp #1 SMP Fri Nov 17
17:14:51 MST 2006 x86_64
and PHP 5.1.6. CGI (on http://hostmonster.com)
regardless of the setting of cgi.fix_pathinfo, whether 0 or 1.

On the other hand, $_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_INFO'] returns the correct
information in the above setup.

So is the PHP version/Server independent way of doing this supposed to
be something like:
$path_info = @$_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_INFO'];
if (!$path_info) $path_info = @$_SERVER['PATH_INFO'];

Csaba Gabor from Vienna


See also http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=31892
Searching for ORIG_PATH_INFO on php.net's online documentation turned
up nothing.
Some references: http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/env.html
http://at.php.net/manual/en/ref.apache.php
http://nl2.php.net/reserved.variables

Finally, as an aside, note that you can do function lookups in on
php.net by writing something like the very pretty:
http://php.net/pathinfo
It is tempting to say that this is an example of PATH_INFO at work
(with an implied index.php), but it is not. For PATH_INFO to work, the
explicit URL, including the file, must be provided (e.g.
http://php.net/index.php/pathinfo which leads to the main php page).
To get apache to behave as you would expect it to behave, you have to
do URL rewriting within apache. Too bad.

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