window location JS vs header PHP for redirection

Question

using JS    in  lt head gt  tag    lt script gt window location  https   stackoverflow com   lt  script gt    using PHP    in  lt head gt  tag   header  Location  https   stackoverflow com    end      Which one I should use   or another    and what about using  lt meta gt     lt meta http-equiv  refresh  content  0 url https   stackoverflow com   gt       Many good answers   I don t know which answer I will accept  Thanks so much

User · Accepted Answer

The result is same for all options  Redirect    lt meta gt  in HTML    Show content of your site  and next redirect user after a few  or 0  seconds  Don t need JavaScript enabled  Don t need PHP    window location in JS    Javascript enabled needed  Don t need PHP  Show content of your site  and next redirect user after a few  or 0  seconds  Redirect can be dependent on any conditions if  1     1    window location href    http   example com        header  Location    in PHP    Don t need JavaScript enabled  PHP needed  Redirect will be executed first  user never see what is after  header   must be the first command in php script  before output any other  If you try output some before header  will receive an Warning  Cannot modify header information - headers already sent

User · Answer

The first case will fail when JS is off  It s also a little bit slower since JS must be parsed first  DOM must be loaded   However JS is safer since the destination doesn t know the referer and your redirect might be tracked  referers aren t reliable in general yet this is something    You can also use meta refresh tag  It also requires DOM to be loaded

User · Answer

PHP redirects are better if you can as with the JavaScript one you re causing the client to load the page before the redirect  whereas with the PHP one it sends the proper header   However the PHP shouldn t go in the  lt head gt   it should go before any output is sent to the client  as to do otherwise will cause errors   Using  lt meta gt  tags have the same issue as Javascript in causing the initial page to load before doing the redirect  Server-side redirects are almost always better  if you can use them

User · Answer

It depends on how and when you want to redirect the user to another page   If you want to instantly redirect a user to another page without him seeing anything of a site in between  you should use the PHP header redirect method   If you have a Javascript and some action of the user has to result in him entering another page  that is when you should use window location   The meta tag refresh is often used on download sites whenever you see these  Your download should start automatically  messages  You can let the user load a page  wait for a certain amount of time  then redirect him  e g  to a to-be-downloaded file  without Javascript

User · Answer

A better way to set the location in JS is via   window location href    https   stackoverflow com     Whether to use PHP or JS to manage the redirection depends on what your code is doing and how  But if you re in a position to use PHP  that is  if you re going to be using PHP to send some JS code back to the browser that simply tells the browser to go somewhere else  then logic suggests that you should cut out the middle man and tell the browser directly via PHP

[php] window.location (JS) vs header() (PHP) for redirection

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