wp_get_referer() doesn't return false when the referer URL is the same as the current URL

[garyc40]

Inside wp_get_referer(), there's this conditional statement:

if ( $ref && $ref !== $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] )

It is there to ensure that wp_get_referer() doesn't return the same page I'm on. This is useful when redirecting because I can detect and avoid infinite redirection.

According to PHP documentation, $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] is only the URI on the host. As a result, the conditional statement above fails in this case:

Let's say I was redirected from ​http://example.com/sample-uri to itself (either by clicking a link or a form submission). Then:

$ref = 'http://example.com/sample-uri';
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = '/sample-uri';

So technically, the referrer is the same page, but wp_get_referer() doesn't return false as expected, because $ref !== $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'].

A better conditional statement would be:

if ( $ref && parse_url( $ref, PHP_URL_PATH ) !== $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] )

Patch attached.

I'm using PHP 5.3.6, Apache 2.2.20.

use get_site_url() in wp_get_referer() checks

unit tests

The original patch here breaks referer URLs from different query variables, and also doesn't account for URLs from the different servers, but (coincidentally) the same resource.

If we use get_site_url() in wp_get_referer() for comparison instead, it fixes this and accounts for query variables and different servers.

I've also attached unit tests for this.