Redirection

[Anon]

Help! Is there a way to redirect a user to a page without using header (Location.... ?

Basically my problem is that I have a system where each page has a header and footer (bothinclude files) and sessions are used (also invoked through an include).

I perform a query on a database and based on the results want to forward to one of two pages. Trouble I get the following message:

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/html/core/session.php:68) in /var/www/html/dws-support/register.php on line 153

??????

Can anybody shed any light?

[Anon]

Yea, don't output anything until the database query is complete. Just move the query above the includes for your header and header() should be ok

[Anon]

Hmmm.

I'm a little confused. I get the same error when I use a different script (different part of the system) which doesn't use the header and footer include files. The error says that header information has aleady been sent by one of the include files I do use.

But I don't send any header information all I do is invoke sessions.

The script which apparantly sends header information look slike this:

srand((double)microtime()*1000000);

$sess_id = md5(uniqid(rand()));

// Start Session
function sess_start($username) {
session_id($sess_id);
session_start();
session_register("USER");
$USER["username"] = $username;

}

// Kill Session
function sess_kill() {
session_close();
session_destroy();
}

Now as to whether my session code I'm not sure, but where is it getting this so called header information from?

Can I redirect any other way?

[Anon]

I'd assume that the session code is setting a cookie.
Have you considered a meta refresh tag?

[Anon]

Ok gentlemen, there are some ways to redirect a page.

a) Using PHP
b) Using Javascript
c) Using HTML

a) header(... // this is the one you don´t need

b)
<script>
location='the_new_page.htm';
</script>

c) There is a meta tag, that redirects the page.

I hope these works for you.

Conogol

[Anon]

Gentlemen thanks for the help. I had considered moving my scripts to be embedded with the html and using the META tag, I hadn't even considered Javascript.

The thing is ideally I would like to keep most of my php code in seperate files (a la cgi). Looks like this won't be an option unless I can re-code the file so that the header () works.

:-(

Nick.

[Anon]

You may try this:

header ("Location: xxx.php");
exit();
... ...

Also, please make sure that u have not "echo" or print or include or require anything before the header line.

[Anon]

Ok I got one page working but can any body explain to me exactly how the header() functions work?

It seems that if I put my header("Location:") call at the top of my script just after my includes it invokes it yet still continues through the rest of the script and does all the other functions.

I assume by these actions php/apache reads in the header() and automatically decides to execute it AFTER the rest of the script has been processed. Which I suppose is exactly like a meta reload in html.

This has solved one problem on one page. I'm still stuck on another page though. Given how header() seems to work, how do I get it to decide to go one route if var=1 or another if var=2?

Nick

[Anon]

if ($var==1) { header("Location: page1.php"); }
if ($var==2) { header("Location: page2.php"); }

I think you could construct a page, also..

$page = "Page" . $var . ".php";
header("Location: $page");

---John Holmes...

[Anon]

You can also try this:

<?
ob_start();

.. ... ...
header(Location:...);
.... ...
?>

the "ob_start()" is something like "response.buffer = true" in asp.

with this "ob_start()", u can have include or other echo statements before "Header(...)". and "ob_start()" should be put at the beginning of a PHP page.

[Anon]

I'm off to try them both. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks.

Nick.