$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']

It return the URL in to access the page which is executing the script. If you need to type http://www.example.com/product.php?id=5 to access the page then $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] returns “/product.php?id=5.

$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']

Returns the root directory of the server which is specified in the configuration file of server. This variable usually returns the path like “/usr/yoursite/www” in Linux and “D:/xamps/xampp/htdocs” in windows.

$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']

Returns the host’s name as found in the http header. This variable usually returns the path like “example.com” when the you find “http://example.com” in browser’s address-bar and return “www.example.com” when you see http://www.example.com in the address-bar. This is quite useful when you’ve to preserve session while making online payment using PHP since session stored for “http://example.com” is not same as for the “http://www.example.com”.

$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']

Returns the user agent’s (browser) detail accessing the web page. We can use strpos($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"],”MSIE”) to detect Microsoft Internet explorer or you can use strpos($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"],”Firefox”) to detect firefox browser in PHP.

$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']

Returns the file-name of the currently executing script. Let’s suppose that you’re accessing the URL http://www.example.com/product.php?id=5 then $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] returns “/product.php” in your script.

$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']

Returns the query string if query string is used to access the script currently executing. Query strings are those string which is available after “?” sign.if you use $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] in the script executing the following URL “http://www.example.com/index.php?id=5&page=product” then it returns “id=5&page=product” in your script.

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']

Returns the IP address of remote machine accessing the current page. But you can’t relie on $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] to get the real IP address of client’s machine.

$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']

Returns the absolute path of the file which is currently executing. It returns path like “var/example.com/www/product.php” in Linux and path like “D:/xampp/xampp/htdocs/test/example.php” in windows.