link checker

[noks]

Alright people I was wondering if anyone here knows how to write a little script that will check a link on a page and display say a picture by it showing if, at that present time, that link is valid or not (like a red circle for not working and a green one for working). I want to use this idea for a downloads section of my site but I cannot figure out how it works as I will link to some external sites. damn php!

cheerz on any help you give me lads,
chris.

[jayant]

hmm, yeah thats possible.

sockets are the way to go for this.

see man for functions like

fsockopen etc. also see that on php.net as it has some user comments where you might find some use full code also.

[Truti]

Don't take my answer as a end solution! It's a bit buggy, but it's fine to work on, so i don't make any error!

<?php
ini_set('display_errors', false);

$fp = fsockopen ("www.truti.com", 80);

if(!$fp)
{
  	echo "Dead Link!\n";
} 
else 
{
	echo "File is up!\n";
}

The "ini_set('display_errors', false);" is placed there because if the link is dead, you get 2 warnings, and by disabling them you can't see them but they are there still!

enjoy!

[jayant]

after opening the socket you only get to know that the server is up or not.
to check if the file exists there. you will need to read,write the HTTP protocol commands.

with the data returned, you will be able to check if the file exists or not, if the size is correct or not, etc.

Originally posted by Truti
Don't take my answer as a end solution! It's a bit buggy, but it's fine to work on, so i don't make any error!

......

enjoy!