last modified date on remote servers

[Anon]

how can you get the last modified dates of .jpg images from a remoter server. the filemdate function doesnt work on remote servers...Thanks...

[theslinky]

If you are fetching an image using the HTTP protocol, the only thing you can do is hope that the HTTP server returns a last modified date that is accurate. You can use your own method using sockets to open the connection, read the last modified header and get the JPEG data.

if you are fetching it from FTP, i think there might be some functions... an extended file list (equivalent to "ls -l") should give you the last modified date.

-sridhar

[Anon]

i went off what you said and i was able to read in the headers and then i did a preg_match and it works with content-length but not with the last-modified

code:

function remoteDateMod($picUrl)
{
//split up that url into a host and such
$picUrl = parse_url($picUrl);
//open the socket to the other server
$pf = fsockopen($picUrl[host],80,$errno,$errstr,30);
//wait for the stuff to become available
socket_set_blocking($pf, TRUE);

//stop if the connection doesnt exist
if (! $pf)
{
return 0;
}
//write the request to the other server
fwrite($pf, "HEAD $picUrl[path] HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $picUrl[host]\r\n\r\n");
//read in the header
for($result = ""; !feof($pf); $result .= fread($pf, 10000000));
fclose($pf);

if (preg_match("/content-length:\s?(\d+)/i", $result, $date)){
return $date[1];
} else {
return 0;
}
}

echo remoteDateMod("http://alteredstates.gfxsites.net/cams/pixcam.jpg");
?>
thanks