trying to catch non existant URL's

[seanisean]

Hi

problem i've got...

I have just rewritten my URLs with mod_rewrite for the apparent need of SEO friendlyness these days, i did it primarily because Google was doing a good job of ignoring me.... and apparently it worked, as G now seems to correctly index me.. for now!

it seems though that i have left a loop hole, that hole being the return of 200 success for non existant URLs. So i'm looking for away to catch the offenders and redirect to either a dynamic error message 404 page or the index page whichever you gurus may perhaps see fit. an example of an original link to a rewritten link is like so:

w3.mysite.tld/index.php?cat=cat1 to -> w3.mysite.tld/cat1

problem being that if cat4 for example didnt exist it would just go ahead and load that page up anyway with allsorts of sql database error messages and produce a 200 success header.

i use a template for most of the site which works along these lines:

<?php
				if (!$_GET['cat'] || $_GET['cat'] == "")
				{
					include("content/main.php");//nothing is set so include main content.
				}
				else if (!$_GET['story'] || $_GET['story'] == "")
				{			
					$display = $_GET['cat'];

				include("content/$display.php");
			}
			else
			{
				$story = $_GET['story'];
				$find_news = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news WHERE title = '$story'");

				while($got_news = mysql_fetch_array($find_news))
				{
					$title = $got_news['title'];
					$news = $got_news['news'];
					echo("<div class=\"detail\">");
					echo("<h2>$title</h2>");
					echo("<p>$news</p>");
					echo("</div>");					
				}
			}
			echo("\n");
                                           ?>
             

so i'm looking for a lean way to test to see if a filename exists in my content folder or if a story exists in the database?

ie:

if(filename(.php)/directory/dbentry(article/story) doesnt exist)
{
      return a 404 missing and redirect to missing page and/or stick a custom error message up
}

regards

sean

[bogu]

seanisean wrote:

problem being that if cat4 for example didnt exist it would just go ahead and load that page up anyway with allsorts of sql database error messages and produce a 200 success header.

I suggest review your code so if someone change this w3.mysite.tld/index.php?cat=cat1 into w3.mysite.tld/index.php?cat=cat4 or this w3.mysite.tld/index.php?cat=cat10000000 wont give u any sql error ...

[seanisean]

yeah cheers bogu

thats what im looking to do a way to stop that from happening,.

just to be a bit clearer about 'cat' .... cat=some category not cat1, cat2 etc....

so for example:
cat=please
cat=help
cat=me

but if
cat=nonexistent

then error 404 occurs not 200 sucess with jumbled sql DB errors

regards

sean

[seanisean]

ok so instead of waiting for a reply i've taken the route to self destruction....

if placed this code in my index.php template before the doctype definition and html tags to test the incoming querys for validity:

<?php
	include('database_user_authority.inc');

// Select the needed database
if (! @mysql_select_db('db1'))
{
	die( '<p>Unable to locate db1 ' . 'database at this time.</p>' );
}

if (!$_GET['cat'] || $_GET['cat'] == "")
{
//no QS so main content is set
		$home = 1;
	}
	else if (!$_GET['story'] || $_GET['story'] == "")
	{	
//if not get story must've got cat so cat is set and tested	
		$qs_validate = $_GET['cat'];
		/*echo($qs_validate);*/
		$validate = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM qs_validate WHERE category = '$qs_validate'");
		/*echo($validate);*/
		if($validate == "")
		{
			header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
			header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
			exit();
		}
		else
		{
			$category = 1;
		}
	}
	else
	{
//story is all that's left so story is set and tested
		$qs_validate = $_GET['story'];
		$validate = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news WHERE title = '$qs_validate'");
		if($validate == "")
		{
			header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
			header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
			exit();
		}
		else
		{
			$story = 1;				
		}
	}
?>

of course it doesnt work :bemused:

seems that when i test echo($validate); it writes 'Resourceid=#4' to the screen instead of the '' or '0' that i hoped for to invoke the redirect to error page

any ideas?

sean

[NogDog]

mysql_query() returns a resource pointer on success, or false if it fails. If you just want to verify that anything was found, after your query just do:

if(mysql_num_rows($validate) > 0)
{

If you need to actually inspect the value(s) returned by the query, you'll need to use one of the mysql_fetch_*() functions, such as mysql_fetch_assoc.

[seanisean]

hi cheers for the quick reply...

what i was after is if you type in www.mysite.com/blah and blah exists load up the blah page

if you type in www.mysite.com/yaddah and yaddah does'nt exist redirect to a 301 or 404 page

so im testing the text after the '/' against a DB table for existence

cheers

sean

[scrupul0us]

why bother with a DB... use PHP to detect if the page/folder exists and process accordingly

[seanisean]

well i tried asking about that one and got no response, so i figured no one knew or it wasnt something that was done?

im still wrestling with the db way to no avail, just a load of errors, ie:

Warning: main(content/kjglj.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/me/web-root/index.php on line 75

Warning: main(content/kjglj.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/me/web-root/index.php on line 75

Warning: main(): Failed opening 'content/kjglj.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /home/me/web-root/index.php on line 75

so i'm all ears to anything specific you have in mind, otherwise i'm in the dark with this old chestnut

cheers

sean

[gabriel]

Why don't you try checking the DB to see if it exist if true

The Page loads, but if false

use

header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");

This line above will also tell search engines the page is no longer there.

[seanisean]

thats what im currently attempting and not relly getting to far as of yet but heres where im at:

<?php
	include('DBauthority.ext');

// Select the myDB database
if (! @mysql_select_db('myDB'))
{
	die( '<p>Unable to locate myDB' . 'database at this time.</p>' );
}

if (!$_GET['cat'] || $_GET['cat'] == "")
{
	$home = 1;
}
else if (!$_GET['story'] || $_GET['story'] == "")
{					
	$qs_validate = $_GET['cat'];
	$validate = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM qs_validate");
	while($result = mysql_fetch_array($validate))
	{
		$test_result = $result['category'];
		if($test_result == $qs_validate)
		{
			$valid = 0;
		}
		else
		{
			$valid = 1;
		}					
	}
	if($valid == 0)
	{
		header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
		header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
		exit();
	}
	else
	{
		$category = 1;
	}
}
else
{
	$qs_validate = $_GET['story'];
	$validate = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news WHERE title = '$qs_validate'");
	if(!validate || $validate == "")
	{
		header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
		header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
		exit();
	}
	else
	{
		$story = 1;				
	}
}
?>

still get the same error messages as in the previous post, neither of these two methods work 🙁

sean

[bogu]

You are doing all of this the wrong way...

I try to create this script form your examples above, u should get the idea ...

/* .......... */
elseif (empty($_GET['story'])) {
	$rez = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM qs_validate WHERE category = '{$_GET['cat']}'");
	if (mysql_num_rows($rez)) {
		/* ... */
	} else {
		header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
		header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
		exit();
	}
} else {
	$rez = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news WHERE title = '{$_GET['story']}'");
	if (mysql_num_rows($rez)) {
		/* ... */
	} else {
		header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
		header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/missing.php");
		exit();
	}
}
/* ........ */

[vaaaska]

My caching/mod_rewrite system...which is nothing new...

• get the uri and make it safe (regex - only allow a-z 0-9 / - no black spaces)
• md5 the uri (sha1 or whatever your scheme is)
• search for the cached file
  -- display if it exists
  IF NOT FOUND IN THE CACHE
  -- use the uri to query the database (yes, use the uri to find the record)

As long as you clean the heck out of the incoming uri and properly pad it when it goes into the query it's a perfectly safe thing to do.

Works like a charm. The uri serves as anything above your root folder (and/or includes the root at '/'). It's painless to change the root or move your site to another domain.

[seanisean]

Bogu thats brilliant thank you

does exactly what i need, i know what i want to do but just havent got to grips with all the semantics yet.... 🙂

vaaaska cheers for the advice... but i think i need to stick with one thing at the moment to avoid being jack of all trades and master of none

in a similar QS validation to ->

$rez = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM qs_validate WHERE category = '{$_GET['cat']}'"); 

but trying to check the existence of a table name directly is there something similar along the lines of ->

if((!$_GET['manafacturers'] || $_GET['manafacturers'] == "") && (!$_GET['materials'] || $_GET['materials'] == ""))
	{
		$index = 1;
	}
	elseif(empty($_GET['manafacturers']))
	{ 
	    	$rez = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM {$_GET['materials']}"); 
	    	if (mysql_num_rows($rez))
		{ 
	        	$validate = 1; 
		} 
		else
		{ 
	        	header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); 
	        	header("Location: /missing"); 
	        	exit(); 
	   	} 
	} 
	elseif(empty($_GET['materials']))
	{
		$rez = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM {$_GET['manafacturers']}"); 
		if (mysql_num_rows($rez)) 
		{ 
	        	$validate = 1; 
		}
		else
		{ 
		        header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); 
		        header("Location: /missing"); 
		        exit(); 
		} 
	}

i know this doesnt work, but i hope i'm nearly there with this one..... deep breath

sean

[gabriel]

I'm trying to understand what you are doing
Is this what you mean by these examples

This is true:
http://fanfiction.greywolfenterprise.com/story.php?id=223:0

This is false
http://fanfiction.greywolfenterprise.com/story.php?id=2:0

If this is what you're talking about, here is the code I currently use to chexk for a valid link.

$getchnumloop = "SELECT uid,sid FROM $dbstory WHERE marked = $sid";
$getchnumloop1 = mysql_query($getchnumloop);
$count = mysql_num_rows($getchnumloop1);

if($count == 0 or $chs >= $count)
	ecoho "page not found";