how to request full URL

[ShoeLace1291]

I'm looking for a way to get the full url of the current page.  something like $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] but the full thing.  request uri doesn't work well for my situation, because my script is in a subdirectory of a domain.  http://localhost/script.  When I use request uri, it also includes "/script", which it should.  Is there anyway to request the full URL?

[QuickOldCar]

//get the url from the address bar
$url = filter_var("http://".$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
if (!empty($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"])){
$query_string = filter_var($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$url .= "?".$query_string;
}

[scootstah]

It's usually good practice to define the base URL somewhere, to ensure that it is always the way it should be.