Getting HTTP code in PHP using curl

Question

I'm using CURL to get the status of a site, if it's up/down or redirecting to another site. I want to get it as streamlined as possible, but it's not working well.

<?php
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,10);
$output = curl_exec($ch);
$httpcode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);

return $httpcode;
?>

I have this wrapped in a function. It works fine but performance is not the best because it downloads the whole page, thing in if I remove $output = curl_exec($ch); it returns 0 all the time.

Does anyone know how to make the performance better?

score 350 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 13 '18 at 16:14

350

First make sure if the URL is actually valid (a string, not empty, good syntax), this is quick to check server side. For example, doing this first could save a lot of time:

if(!$url || !is_string($url) || ! preg_match('/^http(s)?:\/\/[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(:[0-9]+)?(\/.*)?$/i', $url)){
    return false;
}

Make sure you only fetch the headers, not the body content:

@curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER  , true);  // we want headers
@curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY  , true);  // we don't need body

For more details on getting the URL status http code I refer to another post I made (it also helps with following redirects):

How can I check if a URL exists via PHP?

As a whole:

$url = 'http://www.example.com';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);    // we want headers
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);    // we don't need body
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,10);
$output = curl_exec($ch);
$httpcode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);

echo 'HTTP code: ' . $httpcode;

edited Jul 13 '18 at 16:14

halfer

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answered Sep 27 '12 at 20:07

MoonLite

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6

I edited your post and pasted the working example code as a whole. I find it this way more helpful. Btw., +1 for mentioning CURLOPT_HEADER and CURLOPT_NOBODY settings! :) – Sk8erPeter Dec 05 '12 at 16:43
36

It is not necessary to set CURLOPT_HEADER to true. You still get the httpcode from curl_getinfo() either way. – Brainware Mar 24 '15 at 18:02
14

*As of PHP 5.5.0 and cURL 7.10.8, this [CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE] is a legacy alias of CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE* ([ref](http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-getinfo.php)) – sshow Jun 24 '18 at 14:32
For some reason this line `curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);` is hanging. Not sure if this is related to the server's PHP version. – itoctopus Jul 16 '18 at 18:47

score 173 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 10 '15 at 09:14

173

// must set $url first....
$http = curl_init($url);
// do your curl thing here
$result = curl_exec($http);
$http_status = curl_getinfo($http, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($http);
echo $http_status;

answered Feb 10 '15 at 09:14

Deepika Patel

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This one does not require ignoring the body and only makes one call, making it my preferred answer as well. – Mike_K Feb 02 '17 at 22:58
1

Checking the doc in 2021: `As of PHP 5.5.0 and cURL 7.10.8, this is a legacy alias of CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE` – funder7 Jun 08 '21 at 22:31

score 29 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 09 '16 at 13:49

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST,false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER,false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 10);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 5);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
$rt = curl_exec($ch);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
echo $info["http_code"];

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:30

17

Try PHP's "get_headers" function.

Something along the lines of:

<?php
    $url = 'http://www.example.com';
    print_r(get_headers($url));
    print_r(get_headers($url, 1));
?>

answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:30

Raphael Caixeta

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Get headers is slow compared to curl. – Mike Kormendy Apr 13 '17 at 16:04

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 02 '15 at 05:49

curl_getinfo — Get information regarding a specific transfer

Check curl_getinfo

<?php
// Create a curl handle
$ch = curl_init('http://www.yahoo.com/');

// Execute
curl_exec($ch);

// Check if any error occurred
if(!curl_errno($ch))
{
 $info = curl_getinfo($ch);

 echo 'Took ' . $info['total_time'] . ' seconds to send a request to ' . $info['url'];
}

// Close handle
curl_close($ch);

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:30

3

curl_exec is necessary. Try CURLOPT_NOBODY to not download the body. That might be faster.

answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:30

Explosion Pills

188,624
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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 06 '20 at 13:24

use this hitCurl method for fetch all type of api response i.e. Get / Post

        function hitCurl($url,$param = [],$type = 'POST'){
        $ch = curl_init();
        if(strtoupper($type) == 'GET'){
            $param = http_build_query((array)$param);
            $url = "{$url}?{$param}";
        }else{
            curl_setopt_array($ch,[
                CURLOPT_POST => (strtoupper($type) == 'POST'),
                CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => (array)$param,
            ]);
        }
        curl_setopt_array($ch,[
            CURLOPT_URL => $url,
            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
        ]);
        $resp = curl_exec($ch);
        $statusCode = curl_getinfo($ch,CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
        curl_close($ch);
        return [
            'statusCode' => $statusCode,
            'resp' => $resp
        ];
    }

Demo function to test api

 function fetchApiData(){
        $url = 'https://postman-echo.com/get';
        $resp = $this->hitCurl($url,[
            'foo1'=>'bar1',
            'foo2'=>'bar2'
        ],'get');
        $apiData = "Getting header code {$resp['statusCode']}";
        if($resp['statusCode'] == 200){
            $apiData = json_decode($resp['resp']);
        }
        echo "<pre>";
        print_r ($apiData);
        echo "</pre>";
    }

christian Nguyen · Answer 8 · 2016-08-13T13:40:33.460

-5

Here is my solution need get Status Http for checking status of server regularly

$url = 'http://www.example.com'; // Your server link

while(true) {

    $strHeader = get_headers($url)[0];

    $statusCode = substr($strHeader, 9, 3 );

    if($statusCode != 200 ) {
        echo 'Server down.';
        // Send email 
    }
    else {
        echo 'oK';
    }

    sleep(30);
}

edited Aug 13 '16 at 13:40

answered Aug 13 '16 at 08:14

christian Nguyen

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Getheaders is slow compared to curl. – Mike Kormendy Apr 13 '17 at 16:04
1

why don't you use cron or webhook instead of using sleep and endless loop ? – Ugur Kazdal Mar 14 '19 at 09:29

Getting HTTP code in PHP using curl

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