Is there any way to make PHP check if a link before it displays it? I mean, make a script enter a site, check for an error (404 error) or check to see if the site displays ok.

Sure, open up an HTTP connection to the server the link is going to and make a "HEAD" request. If you get a 404, don't show the link.

you could also use fsockopen.


<?php

$website = "web addy";
$connect = @fsockopen($website, 80);

if($connect == TRUE){

//display link

} else {

//dont display it

}
?>


hope it helped

Originally posted by TechSolution
Sure, open up an HTTP connection to the server the link is going to and make a "HEAD" request. If you get a 404, don't show the link.

Can you give me some code example? I don't know how to make php send an HTTP request and check for a 404 error.


glookihost, fsockopen() only lets me check if the domain (domain.com or www.domain.com) works I need to check a page (www.domain.com/page.html). Any more ideas?

Thanks all of your for the help!

Grab the Snoopy.class.php file from the Snoopy project:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/snoopy/


include("Snoopy.class.php");
$snoopy = new Snoopy;
$snoopy->fetch("http://www.example.com/page.html");
$html = $snoopy->results;
//$html now contains the HTML of example.com/page.html, which you can check for a 404 error or otherwise


Using things like $snoopy->fetchlinks(), you can easily create your own link checking spider or whatever you need to do. Snoopy is very versatile.

Thanks! that helps a lot, how can I check for an html 404 error, just search for 404 with ereg()?

Yes, you can just do eregi("404",$html); to check for 404 anywhere in the result page from the fetch, if you know the page doesn't have 404 in it when it's actually up.

Got it, thanks!