php - What's the difference between $_POST, $_GET, and $_REQUEST?

Question

I am bit confused about these super global variable ($_POST, $_GET, and $_REQUEST) in PHP. In which scenario do I need to use these variables in PHP, and what are the main differences these three stand for?

Answer 1

$_POST is an associative array of variables passed to the current script via the HTTP POST method when using application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data as the HTTP Content-Type in the request. You can use when you are sending large data to server or if you have sensitive information like passwords, credit card details etc

$_GET is an associative array of variables passed to the current script via the URL parameters. you can use when there is small amount of data, it is mostly used in pagination, page number is shown in the url and you can easily get the page number from URL using $_GET

$_REQUEST is a 'superglobal' or automatic global, variable. This simply means that it is available in all scopes throughout a script. It is an associative array that by default contains the contents of $_GET, $_POST and $_COOKIE (depending on request_order=)