Fsockopen Error Message

philipjterry

Hello

I am running Wampserver 2.0 and am trying to run a script from a local server... But it gives the following error in my browser - any ideas where to start to resolve this?

Thanks a lot

Warning:fsockopen() [function fsockopen]: php_network_getaddress: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in C:\wamp\www\alexa\alexa_mining.php on line 68

bradgrafelman

As the error message states:

No such host is known

So, either you've entered an invalid hostname or there is a DNS problem preventing the server from resolving the hostname into an IP address.

EDIT: Also, welcome to PHPBuilder!

philipjterry

thank you Brad - what action do you recommend I take? Considering I am a noob...

bradgrafelman

What's the code you're using?

philipjterry

it's PHP

Here is the whole code

<?php 

/* 
    Copyright 2009 Michael Sumner 
    Email: msumner@dnmedia.com
    Web: http://www.DNMedia.com

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by 
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or 
(at your option) any later version. 

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the 
GNU General Public License for more details. 

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. 
*/  

if(!isset($_POST['Submit'])) 
{ 
    echo '<form method="POST" action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '">' 
            . 'Enter the target TLD with leading "." (.com, .co.uk, etc).<br />' 
            . '<input type="text" name="target"><br /><br />' 
            . 'Enter the TLD to check availability on.<br />' 
            . '<input type="text" name="check"><br /><br />' 
            . '<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">'; 
} 
else 
{ 
    if(!($fp = fopen('top-1m.csv', 'r'))){ die('Cannot open file top-1m.csv'); } 

while($line = fgets($fp, 4096)) 
{ 
    $line = trim($line); 

    $pieces = explode(',', $line); 
    $rank = $pieces[0]; 
    $domain = $pieces[1]; 
    $target = $_POST['target']; 
    $check = $_POST['check']; 

    if(substr($domain, strlen($domain) - strlen($target)) == $target) 
    { 
        $pieces = explode(".", $domain); 
        $domain = $pieces[0] . $check; 

        if(is_avail($domain)) 
        { 
            echo $domain . " is available.  Buy at <a href=\"http://affiliates.moniker.com/pub/Affiliates?affiliate_id=2176&landingpage=domaincheck&domain=$domain\" target=\"_blank\">Moniker</a> or " 
                            . "<a href=\"http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/registrar/search.asp?isc=cjchst002&domainToCheck=" . $pieces[0] . "&tld=" . $check . "&checkAvail=1\" target=\"_blank\">Godaddy</a>. " 
                            . "Target Alexa rank of $rank.<br/>"; 
        } 
    } 
} 

echo $count; 

fclose($fp); 
} 

function is_avail($domain) 
{     

    $pieces = explode(".", $domain); 
    $server = $pieces[1] . ".whois-servers.net"; 
    $fp = fsockopen($server, 43, $errno, $errstr, 10); 
    $result = ""; 
    if($fp === FALSE){ return FALSE; } 
    fputs($fp, $domain . "\r\n");     

    while(!feof($fp)){ $result .= fgets($fp, 128); } 
    fclose($fp); 

return ((stristr($result, 'No match for "' . $domain . '"') !== FALSE) || ($result == "NOT FOUND\n")) ? TRUE : FALSE; 
} 

?>

bradgrafelman

When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze.

What is the value of $server when you receive the error message?

philipjterry

as for the source of this script.... would they be getting a commission as an affiliate every time i run the script and register a domain?

philipjterry

this is the only output i see when running the script

Warning:fsockopen() [function fsockopen]: php_network_getaddress: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in C:\wamp\www\alexa\alexa_mining.php on line 68

Warning:fsockopen() [function fsockopen]: unable to connect to .whois-servers.net:43 (php_network_getaddress: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. ) in C:\wamp\www\alexa\alexa_mining.php on line 68

bradgrafelman

philipjterry wrote:
would they be getting a commission as an affiliate every time i run the script and register a domain?

Is there any code that would prevent that?

Also.. I'm not sure what your application is actually doing, but it sure seems to be screaming for a DB rather than an inefficient, featureless flat-file approach. So.. why aren't you using a DB for this?

philipjterry wrote:
this is the only output i see when running the script

Okay, but that's not what I asked - I asked what the value of $server was when the error occurred.

Luckily, the second error message includes the hostname that caused the failure. It should be rather obvious what the problem is if you read the error message and understand what it's telling you. (Hint: Based on the error message, what does it look like the value of $pieces[1] was when it was concatenated with the string ".whois-servers.net" ?)

philipjterry

This is where I start to swim in waters well out of my depth, though I am a quick learner - please elaborate on what you mean by

'screaming for a DB rather than an inefficient, featureless flat-file approach.'
'value of $server'
'value of $pieces[1]'

Please can we break things down into simple steps from: I have the script... now how do I run it successfully, what programs are required other than Wamp?

I'm interested to know what these guys are upto... I'm in UK so don't know what LLC entity equivalent is here as a business means but the source where file came (dnmedia.com is an LLC and this whois-server.net where they sent me is an LLC.

Are they sending me to a dead link....?

bradgrafelman

philiptjerry wrote:
'screaming for a DB rather than an inefficient, featureless flat-file approach.'

What is a Database?

That's just the first Google link I found - can't vouch for its contents/accuracy/whatever. I'm not sure where to start on the topic... do you know what a DBMS such as MySQL even is and/or what it does?

philiptjerry wrote:
'value of $server'
'value of $pieces[1]'

Showing us code that uses variables such as $server and $pieces[1] is great, but it doesn't do much if we also don't know what the values of those variables are when they are used. That's like me asking you for help figuring out why the equation "x + y" keeps giving me the result 42 without ever telling you what "x" and "y" stand for.

In other words, when debugging your code it would help to output the values of those variables (e.g. [man]echo[/man] or [man]print_r/man or [man]var_dump/man or ... etc.).

philiptjerry wrote:
I'm interested to know what these guys are upto... I'm in UK so don't know what LLC entity equivalent is here as a business means but the source where file came (dnmedia.com is an LLC and this whois-server.net where they sent me is an LLC.

Well Wikipedia has a little to say on the topic... but what on earth does the classification of a business have anything to do with PHP code?

philipjterry

I've setup a few dbases on Mysql - not sure i understand your context 'inefficient, featureless flat-file approach.'

So I need to create a new MYSQL database to run this script? I don't understand why I need a database if this script is not for building a website?

Please can you give me examples of what the values should be within those variables? Is that the name of the database that should be in there?

I have no knowledge of the code I deposited, I have not written it - it's shared......

What actions is the script actually performing - this will help me understand better?

bradgrafelman

philipjterry wrote:
not sure i understand your context 'inefficient, featureless flat-file approach.'

The code you posted opens a text file, reads it line-by-line, extracts pieces of data from each line, and does some sort of processing looking for information.

In other words, it mimics what a SQL database would do, albeit somewhat poorly (less efficient, no built-in features, etc. etc.).

philipjterry wrote:
So I need to create a new MYSQL database to run this script?

You don't need to do anything. I was simply offering a much better way of going about what you're trying to do.

philipjterry wrote:
I don't understand why I need a database if this script is not for building a website?

Huh? Who ever said anything about "building a website" ...?

philipjterry wrote:
Please can you give me examples of what the values should be within those variables?

No, I can't. This is your application that is (hopefully) attempting to solve your problem. I can't tell you what the values should be any more than you can tell me what my favorite color should be.

philipjterry wrote:
What actions is the script actually performing

Well my first response above gives a high-level overview of the first section of code. For more details, you could of course visit the PHP manual to answer your question about what a given function is doing.

philipjterry

thanks Brad - for making learning code enjoyable 🙂 You are making me think which is good, rather than just give the answer on a silver tray...

The file they also gave was actucally a .csv file with one million lines not a txt file... Would it be any good importing that file into MySQL?

'It should be rather obvious what the problem is'

Please could we just clarify precisely what you think the root cause of the problem is - is it this website they are sending me to - whois-server.net a dead link?

Can you recommend any good books or links to show what other uses PHP has other than building websites? I was under the impression PHP was for this purpose....

Sorry I know this is kindergarten for you.........🙂 I hope to be at least on a PHP conversational level if you give me a week to catch up

bradgrafelman

philipjterry wrote:
The file they also gave was actucally a .csv file with one million lines not a txt file

A "CSV file" is nothing more than a plain ol' text file that a) has a ".csv" file extension, and b) follows a standard CSV format (line breaks separate rows of data, commas separate columns, fields optionally enclosed with quotes, etc.).

To that end, you could at least optimize the flat-file approach in PHP by using [man]fgetcsv/man instead of [man]fgets/man. See the manual page for what the function does, but essentially it takes care of parsing the CSV-like line from the file and presents that "row" as an array.

However...

philipjterry wrote:
Would it be any good importing that file into MySQL?

It really depends on the overall big picture of what you're trying to accomplish. If you imported the data into MySQL (something it can handle automatically via a LOAD DATA INFILE query), you would then be querying the SQL server instead of reading through the file. The SQL server has the advantages of things such as query cache, indexing, functionality (in case you decide to do more with the data in the future), etc.

If you're just using the PHP script as a local tool for one-time or infrequent tasks, then it's quite possible that you'd be better off just using the .csv file as it is and not bother with a database.

philipjterry

I changed the fgets() to fgetcsv() in the code... Run the script again and now it comes up with a new error message....

When it refers to a line for example below it keeps outputting reference to line 37, what does that mean, that something is missing, it cannot be queried or......?

Warning: trim() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in C:\wamp\www\alexa_mining.php on line 37

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in C:\wamp\www\alexa_mining.php on line 41

In an ideal world I would like to build a database of domain names which I can then bulk check for availability using godaddy for example and ask the database to output those available names in a short list.....

Is that doable?

dagon

seems clear to me, you parsed trim an array, it requites a string.

bradgrafelman

phiipjterry wrote:
I changed the fgets() to fgetcsv() in the code...

Okay, but [man]fgetcsv/man is very different from [man]fgets/man.. you can't simply change the function names and then expect everything to work. The two functions take different parameters, do different things, and return different types of values.

In other words, you should read the manual page I linked you to - there are more changes to make than just switching function names around.

philipjterry wrote:
Is that doable?

Which part?

Can you build and maintain a SQL database using a PHP application as a front end to query/modify the data? Of course!

Can you somehow interact with a host such as GoDaddy? I don't know - that'd be something you'd have to ask GoDaddy. I would think an easier way would be to use the public WHOIS servers to check if a domain is available. Google "check domain available script" or something of the like and I'm sure you'll find plenty of results.