All you have to write is.

    $var = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];

That's pretty much it. No parsing of the string returned.

You could also use this in other ways, as with if/else blocks and switch/case statements.

    Sample if/else block:
   
    <?php
   
    if ($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] == "nhl") {

          doThis();
    }
    elseif ($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] == "querystring") {

          doThat();
    }

    ?>

    Sample switch/case block:

    <?php

    switch($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']) {

       case 'nhl':
          doThis();
          break;

       case 'querystring':
          doThat();
          break;

       default:
          doSomething();

    }

    ?>

Of course as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, this method for query strings is only useful for passing one value, which results in not having to parse the returned string with extra code and processing times.

This way of retrieving a query string can also be applied to Javascript in much the same manner, as I wrote about previously and can be read about here.