parse_url Parse a URL and return its components arrayparse_url stringurl This function returns an associative array containing any of the various components of the URL that are present. If one of them is missing, no entry will be created for it. The components are : scheme - e.g. http host port user pass path query - after the question mark ? fragment - after the hashmark # This function is not meant to validate the given URL, it only breaks it up into the above listed parts. Partial URLs are also accepted, parse_url tries its best to parse them correctly. This function doesn't work with relative URLs. $ php -r 'print_r(parse_url("http://username:password@hostname/path?arg=value#anchor"));' Array ( [scheme] => http [host] => hostname [user] => username [pass] => password [path] => /path [query] => arg=value [fragment] => anchor ) $ php -r 'print_r(parse_url("http://invalid_host..name/"));' Array ( [scheme] => http [host] => invalid_host..name [path] => / ) See also pathinfo, parse_str, dirname, and basename.