Paste terms in URL - php

Question

I am trying to find a way to create a simple dynamic URL, that gets its information from boxes where people enter something.
I got a google search machine and want to refer to it, so basically I wanted two boxes:
One for choosing which directory to search in (the google machine has different directories in its index I want people to be able to choose from those)
and the other for the search term they are looking for.
The URL looks like that:
http://searchengine.xx/search?q=SEARCHTERM&site=DIRECTORY&btnG=Suchen&entqr=0&ud=1&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8
I tried it with PHP like that:
<?php
$directory = $_GET['searchterm'];
echo "http://searchengine.xx/search?q=".$searchterm."&site=directory&btnG=Suchen& entqr=0&ud=1&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8'>URL</a>
?>
This doesnt seem to work well and I wondered if this was possible in any other way (simple HTML, JavaScript maybe?)

Answer 1

try to mix php and htaccess...

Answer 2

<?php
//get the text form the text box and put it in a variable eg.($text)
$url = 'index.php?searchterms=$text';
header("Location: $url");
?>
I think that something like this might work.
Get the text from the text box, then put the text onto a variable (i've used $text to exemplify).
Put the url that you want in a variable (i've used $url to exemplify), but in the end of the url put the text variable the way i did it.
Finally, use the header function to redirect to the url that you want.
Hope i helped

Answer 3

There are several problems with the PHP code in your question. $searchterm is never set and the echo statement is never ended. Try this instead:
<?php
$searchterm = $_GET['searchterm'];
$searchterm = strip_tags($searchterm);
echo "<a href='http://searchengine.xx/search?q=".$searchterm."&site=directory&btnG=Suchen&entqr=0&ud=1&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8'>URL</a>";
?>
The strip_tags will ensure " and ' are removed so it doesn't break your link.