How do I read any request header in PHP

IF: you only need a single header, instead of all headers, the quickest method is:

<?php
// Replace XXXXXX_XXXX with the name of the header you need in UPPERCASE (and with '-' replaced by '_')
$headerStringValue = $_SERVER['HTTP_XXXXXX_XXXX'];

ELSE IF: you run PHP as an Apache module or, as of PHP 5.4, using FastCGI (simple method):

apache_request_headers()

<?php
$headers = apache_request_headers();

foreach ($headers as $header => $value) {
    echo "$header: $value <br />\n";
}

ELSE: In any other case, you can use (userland implementation):

<?php
function getRequestHeaders() {
    $headers = array();
    foreach($_SERVER as $key => $value) {
        if (substr($key, 0, 5) <> 'HTTP_') {
            continue;
        }
        $header = str_replace(' ', '-', ucwords(str_replace('_', ' ', strtolower(substr($key, 5)))));
        $headers[$header] = $value;
    }
    return $headers;
}

$headers = getRequestHeaders();

foreach ($headers as $header => $value) {
    echo "$header: $value <br />\n";
}

See Also:
getallheaders() - (PHP >= 5.4) cross platform edition Alias of apache_request_headers() apache_response_headers() - Fetch all HTTP response headers.
headers_list() - Fetch a list of headers to be sent.

$_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']

RFC3875, 4.1.18:

Meta-variables with names beginning with HTTP_ contain values read from the client request header fields, if the protocol used is HTTP. The HTTP header field name is converted to upper case, has all occurrences of - replaced with _ and has HTTP_ prepended to give the meta-variable name.

strtolower is lacking in several of the proposed solutions, RFC2616 (HTTP/1.1) defines header fields as case-insensitive entities. The whole thing, not just the value part.

So suggestions like only parsing HTTP_ entries are wrong.

Better would be like this:

if (!function_exists('getallheaders')) {
    foreach ($_SERVER as $name => $value) {
        /* RFC2616 (HTTP/1.1) defines header fields as case-insensitive entities. */
        if (strtolower(substr($name, 0, 5)) == 'http_') {
            $headers[str_replace(' ', '-', ucwords(strtolower(str_replace('_', ' ', substr($name, 5)))))] = $value;
        }
    }
    $this->request_headers = $headers;
} else {
    $this->request_headers = getallheaders();
}

Notice the subtle differences with previous suggestions. The function here also works on php-fpm (+nginx).

if only one key is required to retrieved, For example "Host" address is required, then we can use

apache_request_headers()['Host']

So that we can avoid loops and put it inline to the echo outputs

PHP 7: Null Coalesce Operator

//$http = 'SCRIPT_NAME';
$http = 'X_REQUESTED_WITH';
$http = strtoupper($http);
$header = $_SERVER['HTTP_'.$http] ?? $_SERVER[$http] ?? NULL;

if(is_null($header)){
    die($http. ' Not Found');
}
echo $header;

Below code works for me to get any specific data submitted in the header

foreach (getallheaders() as $name => $value) {
   if($name=='Authorization') //here you can search by name
   $Authorization= $value ;
}