best way redirect/reload pages in PHP

Question

Hi,

Whats the best way to reload/redirect a page in PHP which completly removes all history/cache? Which headers should I use?

The page today:

While clicking on a link, get-parameters is set and a script is running. When finished, I want to redriect and reload the page without the get-parameters. At first, it looks like nothing has happen, but when pressing F5, the changes appear.

What I want:

Redirect and reload so the changes appear without pressing F5.

Answer 1

Try this:

echo '<script>document.location.replace("someurl.php");</script>';

This should replace browser history but not cache.

Answer 2

The best way to reload a page and force it to be not taken from the cache will be to append a random id or timestamp to the end of the url as querystring. It makes the request unique each time.

Answer 3

header('Location: http://example.com/path/to/file');

Answer 4

header('Location: http://www.example.com/', true, 302);
exit;

Ref: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html

edit:

This response is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header field.

Answer 5

Thanks for all answers, but the do not seems to work for me...

Answer 6

The safest way is to use a Header Redirect

header('Location: http://www.example.com/', true, 302);
exit;

But beware, that it has to be sent BEFORE any other output is sent to the browser.

Answer 7

function redirect($url) {
    if(!headers_sent()) {
        //If headers not sent yet... then do php redirect
        header('Location: '.$url);
        exit;
    } else {
        //If headers are sent... do javascript redirect... if javascript disabled, do html redirect.
        echo '<script type="text/javascript">';
        echo 'window.location.href="'.$url.'";';
        echo '</script>';
        echo '<noscript>';
        echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url='.$url.'" />';
        echo '</noscript>';
        exit;
    }
}

// How to use
$url = "www.google.com";
redirect($url);