PHP How to send HTTP response code

Question

I have a PHP script that needs to make responses with HTTP response codes  status-codes   like HTTP 200 OK  or some 4XX or 5XX code   How can I do this in PHP

User · Accepted Answer

I just found this question and thought it needs a more comprehensive answer:

As of PHP 5.4 there are three methods to accomplish this:

Assembling the response code on your own (PHP >= 4.0)

The header() function has a special use-case that detects a HTTP response line and lets you replace that with a custom one

header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");

However, this requires special treatment for (Fast)CGI PHP:

$sapi_type = php_sapi_name();
if (substr($sapi_type, 0, 3) == 'cgi')
    header("Status: 404 Not Found");
else
    header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");

Note: According to the HTTP RFC, the reason phrase can be any custom string (that conforms to the standard), but for the sake of client compatibility I do not recommend putting a random string there.

Note: php_sapi_name() requires PHP 4.0.1

3rd argument to header function (PHP >= 4.3)

There are obviously a few problems when using that first variant. The biggest of which I think is that it is partly parsed by PHP or the web server and poorly documented.

Since 4.3, the header function has a 3rd argument that lets you set the response code somewhat comfortably, but using it requires the first argument to be a non-empty string. Here are two options:

header(':', true, 404);
header('X-PHP-Response-Code: 404', true, 404);

I recommend the 2nd one. The first does work on all browsers I have tested, but some minor browsers or web crawlers may have a problem with a header line that only contains a colon. The header field name in the 2nd. variant is of course not standardized in any way and could be modified, I just chose a hopefully descriptive name.

http_response_code function (PHP >= 5.4)

The http_response_code() function was introduced in PHP 5.4, and it made things a lot easier.

http_response_code(404);

That's all.

Compatibility

Here is a function that I have cooked up when I needed compatibility below 5.4 but wanted the functionality of the "new" http_response_code function. I believe PHP 4.3 is more than enough backwards compatibility, but you never know...

// For 4.3.0 <= PHP <= 5.4.0
if (!function_exists('http_response_code'))
{
    function http_response_code($newcode = NULL)
    {
        static $code = 200;
        if($newcode !== NULL)
        {
            header('X-PHP-Response-Code: '.$newcode, true, $newcode);
            if(!headers_sent())
                $code = $newcode;
        }       
        return $code;
    }
}

User · Answer

Unfortunately I found solutions presented by  dualed have various flaws    Using substr  sapi type  0  3      cgi  is not enogh to detect fast CGI  When using PHP-FPM FastCGI Process Manager  php sapi name   returns fpm not cgi Fasctcgi and php-fpm expose another bug mentioned by  Josh - using header  X-PHP-Response-Code  404   true  404   does work properly under PHP-FPM  FastCGI  header  HTTP 1 1 404 Not Found    may fail when the protocol is not HTTP 1 1  i e   HTTP 1 0    Current protocol must be detected using   SERVER  SERVER PROTOCOL    available since PHP 4 1 0 There are at least 2 cases when calling http response code   result in unexpected behaviour    When PHP encounter an HTTP response code it does not understand  PHP will replace the code with one it knows from the same group  For example  521 Web server is down  is replaced by  500 Internal Server Error   Many other uncommon response codes from other groups 2xx  3xx  4xx are handled this way  On a server with php-fpm and nginx http response code   function MAY change the code as expected but not the message  This may result in a strange  404 OK  header for example  This problem is also mentioned on PHP website by a user comment http   www php net manual en function http-response-code php 112423    For your reference here there is the full list of HTTP response status codes  this list includes codes from IETF internet standards as well as other IETF RFCs  Many of them are NOT currently supported by PHP http response code function   http   en wikipedia org wiki List of HTTP status codes  You can easily test this bug by calling   http response code 521     The server will send  500 Internal Server Error  HTTP response code resulting in unexpected errors if you have for example a custom client application calling your server and expecting some additional HTTP codes     My solution  for all PHP versions since 4 1 0     httpStatusCode   521   httpStatusMsg     Web server is down    phpSapiName      substr php sapi name    0  3   if   phpSapiName     cgi      phpSapiName     fpm         header  Status     httpStatusCode      httpStatusMsg     else        protocol   isset   SERVER  SERVER PROTOCOL        SERVER  SERVER PROTOCOL      HTTP 1 0       header  protocol      httpStatusCode      httpStatusMsg         Conclusion  http response code   implementation does not support all HTTP response codes and may overwrite the specified HTTP response code with another one from the same group   The new http response code   function does not solve all the problems involved but make things worst introducing new bugs   The  compatibility  solution offered by  dualed does not work as expected  at least under PHP-FPM    The other solutions offered by  dualed also have various bugs  Fast CGI detection does not handle PHP-FPM  Current protocol must be detected   Any tests and comments are appreciated

User · Answer

If you are here because of Wordpress giving 404 s when loading the environment  this should fix the problem   define  WP USE THEMES   false   require     wp-blog-header php    status header  200       wp query- gt is 404 false     if necessary   The problem is due to it sending a Status  404 Not Found header  You have to override that  This will also work   define  WP USE THEMES   false   require     wp-blog-header php    header  HTTP 1 1 200 OK    header  Status  200 All rosy

User · Answer

header  HTTP 1 1 200 OK    http response code 201   header  Status  200 All rosy      http response code 200   not work because test alert 404  https   developers google com speed pagespeed insights

User · Answer

Add this line before any output of the body  in the event you aren t using output buffering   header  HTTP 1 1 200 OK      Replace the message portion   OK   with the appropriate message  and the status code with your code as appropriate  404  501  etc

User · Answer

If your version of PHP does not include this function    lt  php  function http response code  code   NULL            if   code     NULL                switch   code                    case 100   text    Continue                       break                  case 101   text    Switching Protocols                       break                  case 200   text    OK                       break                  case 201   text    Created                       break                  case 202   text    Accepted                       break                  case 203   text    Non-Authoritative Information                       break                  case 204   text    No Content                       break                  case 205   text    Reset Content                       break                  case 206   text    Partial Content                       break                  case 300   text    Multiple Choices                       break                  case 301   text    Moved Permanently                       break                  case 302   text    Moved Temporarily                       break                  case 303   text    See Other                       break                  case 304   text    Not Modified                       break                  case 305   text    Use Proxy                       break                  case 400   text    Bad Request                       break                  case 401   text    Unauthorized                       break                  case 402   text    Payment Required                       break                  case 403   text    Forbidden                       break                  case 404   text    Not Found                       break                  case 405   text    Method Not Allowed                       break                  case 406   text    Not Acceptable                       break                  case 407   text    Proxy Authentication Required                       break                  case 408   text    Request Time-out                       break                  case 409   text    Conflict                       break                  case 410   text    Gone                       break                  case 411   text    Length Required                       break                  case 412   text    Precondition Failed                       break                  case 413   text    Request Entity Too Large                       break                  case 414   text    Request-URI Too Large                       break                  case 415   text    Unsupported Media Type                       break                  case 500   text    Internal Server Error                       break                  case 501   text    Not Implemented                       break                  case 502   text    Bad Gateway                       break                  case 503   text    Service Unavailable                       break                  case 504   text    Gateway Time-out                       break                  case 505   text    HTTP Version not supported                       break                  default                      exit  Unknown http status code      htmlentities  code                              break                             protocol    isset   SERVER  SERVER PROTOCOL        SERVER  SERVER PROTOCOL      HTTP 1 0                header  protocol          code          text                GLOBALS  http response code      code            else                code    isset  GLOBALS  http response code       GLOBALS  http response code     200                     return  code

User · Answer

With the header function  There is an example in the section on the first parameter it takes

User · Answer

since PHP 5 4 you can use http response code   for get and set header status code   here an example    lt  php     Get the current response code and set a new one var dump http response code 404        Get the new response code var dump http response code       gt    here is the document of this function in php net   http response code

User · Answer

We can get different return value from http response code via the two different environment      Web Server Environment CLI environment   At the web server environment  return previous response code if you provided a response code or when you do not provide any response code then it will be print the current value  Default value is 200  OK    At CLI Environment  true will be return if you provided a response code and false if you do not provide any response code     Example of Web Server Environment of Response code s return value    var dump http respone code 500       int 200  var dump http response code        int 500    Example of CLI Environment of Response code s return value     var dump http response code        bool false  var dump http response code 501       bool true  var dump http response code        int 501

[php] PHP: How to send HTTP response code?

Assembling the response code on your own (PHP >= 4.0)

3rd argument to header function (PHP >= 4.3)

http_response_code function (PHP >= 5.4)

Compatibility

Examples related to php

Examples related to http-response-codes