$_GET and URL Rewriting for PHP

Question

How does URL rewriting affect the $_GET parameter for PHP?

Say I have a URL like http://example.com/index.php?p=contact and I use $_G

Answer 1

When the client requests http://example.com/contact, the server uses the rewrite rule to serve them http://example.com/index.php?p=contact instead. The client will not be able to see the rewritten URL and might not even be able to tell that it was rewritten. Requesting either URL as the client would give you the exact same page.