Header Function- PLEASE HELP- PLEASE

Anon

I have asked this board on three seperate occassions how to redirect someone with the header function. I have gone to the manual and I think it is just my coding I guess, because I can't get it to work- here is the code: I have made sure that my include file [that has the hostname,pass,and user] has no stry spaces, line breaks and it has NO HTML in it at all.

<?php

#####################################################

This program verifies the user/pass combination

#####################################################

$enteruser = trim($enteruser);
$enterpass = trim($enterpass);

include("this file is outside the root");

$Link1 = mysql_connect($Host,$User,$Password);
mysql_select_db($DBName, $Link1);

$Query1 = "SELECT * from auth where user = '$enteruser'";

$Result1 = mysql_query($Query1,$Link1);

$Array1 = mysql_fetch_array($Result1);

$veriuser = $Array1["user"];
$veripass = $Array1["pass"];

if ($enterpass == "$veripass" && ($enteruser == "$veriuser")) {

header(Location:"http://www.somewhere/directory/file.htm");

}

else

{

print("<bgcolor = 'red' font color ='yellow' font size ='6'><center><b>NOT AUTHORIZED!!<br><br>Please go back and try again<br><a href='/login.htm'>Click Here to go back!");

exit;

}

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but this is the program that basically authorizes a user, the variables were passed by an HTML page- does that affect the header function at all?

Anon

No it shouldnt affect the header function at all. You need to make sure that whatever you are including also does not have any white space before or after the php tags, and that whatever is in that file does not send any information to the browser.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

John

Anon

header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/my/page.html");

You have to pass in a string, you are passing in an invalid string.

Tim

Anon

I am sorry if i dont understand that- but what do you mean by passing in an invalid string? Is my syntax wrong?

Anon

I see now- it is my syntax- the " is in the wrong place- sorry about that- duh! thanks guys!

Anon

Ok folks, I have now tried everything i can possibly think of:

I tried to test the header function and after an hour of timkering with it, I have concluded that it is a useless function that serves no real purpose.

The only way that it works is this-

<?php
header("Location:http://www.someplace.com");
?>

which does me no good.

You can't have an include at all anywhere in the script, you can print anything before it, and you can't have even the slightest little bit of code in front of it such as an if statement.

WHAT FUNCTION DO I USE TO GET IT TO REDIRECT SOMEONE AUTOMATICALLY, I know it can be done, I have seen it before. I knwo you can't send any HTML before it and to look for stray spaces and stuff, but NOTHING works.

I simply want it to redirect someone if their username and Password do NOT match what is in the database.

PLease help me guys.

majik-sheff

The only trick to using headers effectively is (like John said) you CANNOT HAVE ANYTHING SENT TO THE BROWSER BEFORE THE HEADER.

THe upshot of this is that you absolutely must have the first character of your .php file be < followed by the rest of the script. It doesn't matter how much script there is before the header as long as none of it produces output.