Return HTTP Error code?

mpearl

I'm using a free web host, and it's great.... all except the fact that they go down for a few hours from time to time. I started using Interseer to e-mail me when the site goes down, then again when the site is back up. This is great, except Interseer only recognizes HTML files... my site depends upon a mySQL database as well.

Here's what I was thinking... write a simple PHP file, which attempts to connect to mySQL. If it fails simply return nothing, so that Interseer will continue reporting an error to me. I don't think that will work, since it's responding to HTTP error codes. Here's my next thought: write a PHP file, which attempts to connect to the DB, if it fails, return a 404 Error code. Is it possible, and how can I respond with a 404 Error code?

sidney

  header("Status: 404 Not Found");

header

mpearl

Sidney, you RULE... Thanks for the quick and on-target reply!!!

mpearl

Hmmm,

I tried:

<?php 
	$host = "localhost"; 
	$user = "username"; 
	$pass = "password"; 
	$database = "database"; 
	$connection = mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass);
    // test connection 
    if (!$connection) { 
 		echo "Couldn't make a connection!"; 
 		header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
        exit; 
    } else {
    	echo "Database is up!";
		header("Content-type: text/html"); 
    }
?>

This isn't quite working out.... server is returning:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/site.com/www/uptest.php:7)

What's wrong with my code?

Thanks so much for the help!

Weedpacket

 echo "Couldn't make a connection!"; 
header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");

Headers have to be sent before any other output.

mpearl

Thanks for your help! It was that, and adding an @ to mask the DB connection error. In addition, I changed the error code to 503, to distinguish it from a 404 error, which would be returned if Apache were down.

To close the loop for anyone else reading the thread. The final (working) code is.

<?php  

    $host = "localhost";  

    $user = "username";  

    $pass = "password";  

    $database = "database";  

    $connection = @mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass); 
    // test connection 
    if (!$connection) {  

        header("HTTP/1.0 503 Service Unavailable", false);
        echo "mySQL is down!";  

        exit;  

    } else { 
        header("Content-type: text/html", false);  

        echo "Database is up!"; 
    } 
?>