Need little help wt PHP

Hello,
the thing i trying to do is to add to index.php file code what will check for cookie and depending on it will redirect:

if (isset($_COOKIE["welcomepage"]))
  header("Location: ./index.php?welcome"); 
else
  header("Location: ./index.php?mainpage"); 
if ($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"] == "welcome"){
  setcookie("welcomepage", "view", time()+43200);
echo "Welcome!.";
}

PHP:

but what causes "Redirect Loop", because all other pages are in same index.php , ore included. my goal is to make page what will look like all is in one index.php and all other pages will be index.php?something , cuz not all pages will be really in index.php, whey will be included.
So any ideas how to fix what problem?

 

why not changing ?mainpage to ?page=mainpage, so you can check if $_GET['page'] is used before you do a redirect!

for example

if (!isset($_COOKIE["welcomepage"]))
{
    // display first screen and add cookie
    setcookie("welcomepage", "view", time()+43200);
    echo 'hello world';
}
else
{
    switch ($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])
    {
        case "welcome":
        break;
        
        default:
        break;
    }
}

Code (markup):

 

Yes, all works fine, thanks!
But if user will just view index.php...
because all in $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']
if i add redirect, it will cause redirect loop, because what code i will add will be everywhere!
Any ideas?

 

Nevermind, forgot about default: in switching...
Thanks for help.

 

oki... a small tip... try using htaccess to get nice seo friendly urls

 

Thanks for tip imphpguru, but in nvm in htaccess construction, what is "seo friendly urls"???

 

well basically, SEO Friendly URLs are, something like instead of

xxx.com/index.php?page=xxx

They will be

xxx.com/page/xxx

An example that I have used is at freebetsgalore.com. Have a look at the urls. All those pages dont actually exist, but it appears in the urls as if they are actual pages / directories.

 

use index.php?page=xxx instead of index.php?xxx lol

 

damit, and why is better to use index.php?page=xxx instead of index.php?xxx ???
you mean longer urls are better?

 

Eh! Not really that... see page=xxx is available through $_GET['page'] while for ?xxx, you will have to iterate through teh $_GET varaible. This is the standard method used by most of the programmers