Beginner PHP Tutorial - 62 - $_SERVER Variables: Host Name Video Lecture | PHP for Absolute Beginners: From Novice to PHP Master - Web Development

hi this is Alex from PHP academy' dork
and welcome to another video tutorial
created for the new boston now in this
video we're going to be continuing with
this server environmental information
but we're now going to be producing the
hosts now this is the hosts of the
website is we're going to return is
going to be the HTTP colon forward slash
forward slash and it's going to be the
domain name after that so let's get
straight ahead and echo out this dollar
underscore server and the information we
need to supply it in here is HTTP
underscore host now what this is going
to do for me is going to is going to
output localhost because I'm just
running on a local server so let's
refresh this and you can see that we've
got localhost here now in this video I'm
not going to program as much so I'm
going to talk about this we're just
going to talk about why this might be
useful now let's just say we have a
template system I might have a variable
up here which is called host okay I've
got a variable up here called host and
this might be contained within say a
configuration file so let's get rid of
this and we'll create a new file called
and we'll call this comp in PHP so what
we can do is from our index top here
it's pre far we can include or rather
require that would probably be better
comp in PHP now presuming these are our
settings what we've automatically now
done is created this variable that's
going to automatically update the host
that we're running this from so let's
say at the moment I've got it on
localhost and I'm developing it all my
pictures for example for a template
system are going to come from localhost
forward slash something so it could be
local at the moment the URL running
under is localhost forward slash series
forward slash server so what I could do
is I could say host equals this
however template or images equals dollar
underscore sir no it would be host
because we've already defined that host
and
in a pend forward-slash images for
example so we could say that this is our
images folder and what we've
automatically now done is as long as the
directory structures kept the same
within our site which it should be if
we're developing it the way we want it
were automatically updating the host so
what I could then do is inside my file I
could say echo and I could create an
image here source equals that and I
could say write what's the location of
this so we can append on images so we've
created this images variable if you like
so we can append on images and then we
can put the file name afterwards so I
could say another trailing slash on
there and we could set images and then
header dot gif for example so this is
automatically journalists now if we
transfer this from local house which I'm
running at the moment on a local server
- let's say PHP academy' org our
configuration files automatically going
to update the images folder to PHP
academy' org forward slash images so now
our page is going to automatically
update each directory so we don't have
to go through and change them so this is
how this the server environmental
information with a HTTP host in here
helps us with sort of day-to-day easy
running of a website and when you're
thinking about creating a website with
lots of images and you put lots of
different pages you should always think
about creating a config file with this
kind of information in there there are
many other ways to do this and many
different sort of techniques and methods
however as long as you're using
something that ensures that each of your
folders or wherever you're referencing
too often is consistent you can end up
with a website or a project that's
easily transferable especially if you
are creating something that then had to
be say released to the public
you'd want something that people can
just copy straight over to the server
and start using more or less
straightaway