Broken links

jonlindh

Hello...

I working on a php script that i run from crontab that will check external links in a mysql table if they are broken. But i don't really know how to check if a link is broken. Is it possible from php to check HTTP status of a url?

/ Jon

PHP-Editors_com

You may get PHP to return info about a URL, but you must remeber that if the requested URL is on a Server with error pages then it will return a page even if the actual reqquested page doesnt exist. What exactly are you looking to do here ?

jonlindh

Yes i saw that problem.

Doesn't the webserver do a redirect to error pages?? if it does and if it's possible to check HTTP status(check för redirection in the header) of a url I can set a warning on that URL. And then check that url manually.

What do you think?

/ Jon

cahva

This little script worked for me. I tested it with broken link on a server which redirects to a error page.

I put @fopen() instead of plain fopen() because it gives errors if it doesnt find what it is looking for.

<?php
$query="SELECT link FROM table";
$result=mysql_query($query);
while ($link=mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
$fd = @fopen($link[0],r);
if (!$fd) {
	echo $link[0]." - Not working\n<br>";		
	}
else
fclose($fd);
}
?>

jonlindh

That's what my script look like now but it does not work with servers that has 404 error pages =(

cahva

Well, it does work. For example try to use http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/thispagedoesnorexist.php as link and it spits out an error. Thats an 404 error page right?

jonlindh

when i surf to: http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/thispagedoesnorexist.php I get windows standard 404 error message, so i think that server does not send a customized error message that several other servers do...
/ Jon

cahva

Well I tried that script fro servers with custom 404 pages, servers which redirects another place. Still working!

Tell me a link where it doesnt work. I have tried lots of different webservers and it has worked with all of them.