someone here in SO told me that the hash (#) in the url could be retrieved by php function parse_url? is this true?

my web site got a lot of ajax effects and i want to be able to pass an url with a hash to the index.php so it could display the information based on the hash values.

eg. if a user clicks and navigates in my website and he found a thing he wants to share, then he could copy the address and send it to his friend and when this person enters he sees the same thing.

i have tried using javascript to save the hash values in cookies but that isnt working with firefox and its too slow in safari (the html will show first, so one has to refresh the page a second time for the correct content to be shown).

any other solution is welcome

EDIT: im very confused..if i use the parse_url i have to type the url myself in php to get the hash? what is the point then...my question if whether my pal can enter the url with # values and php could process it? it seems like a no, am i right?

someone here in SO told me that the hash (#) in the url could be retrieved by php function parse_url? is this true?

my web site got a lot of ajax effects and i want to be able to pass an url with a hash to the index.php so it could display the information based on the hash values.

eg. if a user clicks and navigates in my website and he found a thing he wants to share, then he could copy the address and send it to his friend and when this person enters he sees the same thing.

i have tried using javascript to save the hash values in cookies but that isnt working with firefox and its too slow in safari (the html will show first, so one has to refresh the page a second time for the correct content to be shown).

any other solution is welcome

EDIT: im very confused..if i use the parse_url i have to type the url myself in php to get the hash? what is the point then...my question if whether my pal can enter the url with # values and php could process it? it seems like a no, am i right?

• php
• javascript
• fragment-identifier

• 1 Some example code of what you mean would be helpful. – Myles Commented Dec 24, 2009 at 6:34
• PHP can process it if you send the string to the server. You can do this via ajax, a form post, etc. – Sampson Commented Dec 24, 2009 at 6:54
• but not thorugh the webbrowser when the user enter it right? – ajsie Commented Dec 24, 2009 at 7:12

5 Answers 5

The hash in the URL doesn't even get to the server. There is no way you can access it from any programming language on the server side.

parse_url() can get the hash from a url string. Note the signature:

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

You must already know the string. For instance, from the docs:

<?php

  $url = 'http://username:password@hostname/path?arg=value#anchor';
  print_r(parse_url($url));
  echo parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);

?>

Outputs

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

Note the entry under key "fragment".

Example from php manual:

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

print_r(parse_url($url));

echo parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
?> 

someone here in SO told me that the hash (#) in the url could be retrieved by php function parse_url? is this true?

Yes:

parse_url('http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1957030/retrieve-the-hash-in-the-url-with-php/1957040#1957040', PHP_URL_FRAGMENT); // 1957040

But you can't determine the hash on the server side without knowing the full URL à priori, not sure if the HTTP_REFERER holds this hash (think not).

Once you get #value using javascript, send it back to server using ajax or .... url : http://example.in/?paramvalue=PKDVS4G#access_token=463d3d40-bdbb-04f3-ddb2-c35e2bd9ffa8

<script>     
alert(window.location.hash);
var myhashvalue = window.location.hash;
//hash value like :  #access_token=463d3d40-bdbb-04f3-ddb2-c35e2bd9ffa8
//ajax call to send myhashvalue to server
</script>