Hiding the get variables

Question

I have a url that is constructed using get variables like

location.href = this.href +'?type='+ escape($('#type_of_station').html()) + '&count='+ escape($('.number_changer').attr("id").slice(-1));

which gives me a url like the following

http://posnation.com/pre_config/pre_config_step_2.php?type=Grocery&count=2 

on the following page I grab the variables via PHP

<p id="type_of_station" class="text left"><?php $_GET['type'] != "" ? print str_replace("_", " ", $_GET['type']) : print "Food Pos System" ?></p>

This works great but the url is kind of ugly. Is there a way to maybe hide this and still have the get variables available to me on the next page

Answer 1

Either use $_POST instead of $_GET, or save them in a session and go to the next page.

EDIT: That is if you really want to completely hide the variables. As the others are suggesting: it's better to use mod_rewrite to make it look nicer, without hiding the data.

Answer 2

You want to POST your variables to the server rather than sending them as GET requests.

In PHP you can access the variables POST-ed with the $_POST variable.

Simple form:

form.php

<form action="process.php" method="POST">
   username: <input type="text" name="username" value="" /><br/>
</form>

The 'username' POST-ed could then be accessed in the process.php file by

process.php

echo $_POST['username'];

Unlike GET requests, values sent to the server are not shown in the URL.

Answer 3

To make url look nice is one thing.
To hide url data is another. Never hide anything. Or you will make your site unusable.