function request_path in Drupal 7
Returns the requested URL path of the page being viewed.
Examples:
- http://example.com/node/306 returns "node/306".
 - http://example.com/drupalfolder/node/306 returns "node/306" while base_path() returns "/drupalfolder/".
 - http://example.com/path/alias (which is a path alias for node/306) returns "path/alias" as opposed to the internal path.
 - http://example.com/index.php returns an empty string (meaning: front page).
 - http://example.com/index.php?page=1 returns an empty string.
 
Return value
The requested Drupal URL path.
See also
3 calls to request_path()
- drupal_environment_initialize in includes/
bootstrap.inc  - Initializes the PHP environment.
 - url_alter_test_foo in modules/
simpletest/ tests/ url_alter_test.module  - Menu callback.
 - url_alter_test_url_inbound_alter in modules/
simpletest/ tests/ url_alter_test.module  - Implements hook_url_inbound_alter().
 
File
- includes/
bootstrap.inc, line 3115  - Functions that need to be loaded on every Drupal request.
 
Code
function request_path() {
  static $path;
  if (isset($path)) {
    return $path;
  }
  if (isset($_GET['q']) && is_string($_GET['q'])) {
    // This is a request with a ?q=foo/bar query string. $_GET['q'] is
    // overwritten in drupal_path_initialize(), but request_path() is called
    // very early in the bootstrap process, so the original value is saved in
    // $path and returned in later calls.
    $path = $_GET['q'];
  }
  elseif (isset($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
    // This request is either a clean URL, or 'index.php', or nonsense.
    // Extract the path from REQUEST_URI.
    $request_path = strtok($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '?');
    $base_path_len = strlen(rtrim(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']), '\\/'));
    // Unescape and strip $base_path prefix, leaving q without a leading slash.
    $path = substr(urldecode($request_path), $base_path_len + 1);
    // If the path equals the script filename, either because 'index.php' was
    // explicitly provided in the URL, or because the server added it to
    // $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] even when it wasn't provided in the URL (some
    // versions of Microsoft IIS do this), the front page should be served.
    if ($path == basename($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])) {
      $path = '';
    }
  }
  else {
    // This is the front page.
    $path = '';
  }
  // Under certain conditions Apache's RewriteRule directive prepends the value
  // assigned to $_GET['q'] with a slash. Moreover we can always have a trailing
  // slash in place, hence we need to normalize $_GET['q'].
  $path = trim($path, '/');
  return $path;
}