How to get Apache HTTP response code (or first line of server response) with PHP

Question

How can I get the first line of the servers' HTTP response (Apache2 in my case) for use in my PHP scripts? For example:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Etc.

Or better yet, get just the HTTP response code that my server sends to the client.

To my surprise, $_SERVER doesn't have it. http_response_code() seems to only get the response code if it's first been set by PHP. apache_response_headers() doesn't seem to have it. get_headers() seems like it would require an extra step/connection (correct me if I'm wrong).

If I set ErrorDocument 403 /index.php in httpd.conf, I can use $_SERVER["REDIRECT_STATUS"] to get the response code from PHP, but is there another way?

EDIT:

Just to be clear, I find it odd that $_SERVER returns almost every bit of data except for the first line of the response or the response code. Maybe it's a general limitation between the HTTP protocol/server technology/PHP? Maybe I shouldn't be trying to access this info in my PHP scripts?

Surely if your script is running, it's 200 unless you've set it to something else yourself or you're in an errordocument? — Basic
– Basic, Commented Oct 20, 2012 at 16:24

Jeff · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-20 20:55:37Z

1

UPDATE: NO IT'S NOT POSSIBLE Unless you proxy your own requests. Send your request to a Public facing URL and then redirect them to an internal variant and you get to see the headers in the process. But it's not an easy feat and performance taxing also. Or you can write a Http Server extension and see where that takes you :)

Example:

request comes to /page.html
you append ?proxy=true and forward to /page.html?proxy=true
attempt to load new URL internally forwarding the original request to you internal handler
check in your internal handling for all $_GET['proxy'] === 'true' requests come from local IP
if you have a proxy === true then handle this the usual way
/page.html gets data from /page.html?proxy=true
logs headers
forwards data back to original client
(not very easy and performance taxing if done wrong)

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT ANSWERING

http://php.net/manual/en/function.headers-list.php - may be this one?

But this works for the headers you are about to send...

register_shutdown_function(function(){
    // Headers are really sent here, do some comparison
    var_dump(headers_list());
});

.htaccess variant that directs all missing files to index.php.

RewriteEngine on
#If handler file is missing, pull index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* index.php [L,NC]

Try this.

edited Oct 20, 2012 at 20:55

Jeff

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answered Oct 20, 2012 at 16:11

CodeAngry

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13 Comments

Jeff Over a year ago

I looked at that function, but you're right. It doesn't get the servers' response headers.

CodeAngry Over a year ago

@Jeff You can't get the server's response headers unless you do a request yourself. Just try this function after you send some output. And compare stuff... When you send output headers don't change anymore. Make sure if you do requests to your own URL, you don't end up in a loop :)

Jeff Over a year ago

I don't understand why I can get all of the other $_SERVER variables, but not the first line of the response. Maybe the first line/response code is special.

CodeAngry Over a year ago

@Jeff First line is "HTTP/Ver.Ver CODE Error Message". By default it's 200 but can change by you or internal server errors. You can trace it from the server logs after it was sent.

Jeff Over a year ago

The only thing being returned is 1 item in an array: string(23) "Content-type: text/html", so I assume that headers_list() only takes into account headers being set by PHP. Either that or I'm doing something wrong.

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Sven · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-20 16:09:59Z

0

Are you asking for the response code of a remote host or the local machine? In the first case you could "ping" the machine using a CURL request with the header option set and retrieve various settings of the response header.

answered Oct 20, 2012 at 16:09

Sven

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1 Comment

Jeff Over a year ago

I'm asking for the response code of the local server. Thus, cURL isn't what I'm after.

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