Cant set HTTP header with PHP

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Headers already sent by PHP

I am trying to write a JSON API for an app that I am making. It's in PHP. At the beginning of the PHP script I try to check if all the GET parameters are present, if not, then the server should send a 400 - Bad Request header.

the code looks like this:

//CHECK CONDITIONS
if (isset($GET["clat"]) && isset($GET["clng"]) && isset($GET["limit"]))
{
//do stuff
} else {
header( "HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request");
exit;
}

The server simply serves an empty page with the 200 - OK header. So I tested it on another webserver and there it does seem to work.

So apparently there's something wrong with the server. How do I go around debugging this issue?

EDIT I seem to have found the line causing the header to always be 200-OK. At the beginning of the PHP I include another php file with some mySQL Connection parameters. When I comment out the include 'setup.php'; line it works. the setup.php contains the following:

 // Connects to Our Database 
 mysql_connect("#####", "#####", "######") or die(mysql_error()); 
 mysql_select_db("####") or die(mysql_error());

How do I remain the external DB info include while being able to send a different HTTP Header afterwards?

Thanks in advance.

Can you use any type of `headers` at all? – Peon Oct 10 '12 at 13:21 — Peon, Oct 10 '12 at 13:21

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '12 at 13:22

1

header( "HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request", true, 400);

answered Oct 10 '12 at 13:22

Igor Popov

924
8
14

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '12 at 14:11

1

Check if you're included files doesn't have UTF BOM at the beggining of file and any text after closing ?>, because if there is any, PHP will automatically send headers

answered Oct 10 '12 at 14:11

ninaj

748
4
9

1

The included file only contains the code that I pasted above surrounded by – Wissej Oct 10 '12 at 14:16
try to delete ending ?> tags from files as they're not necessary, if your files are only php code, and check the main file as well for the BOM – ninaj Oct 10 '12 at 14:18
Your answer got me to the solution. There was a space after the `?>`. Thanks a lot! – Wissej Oct 10 '12 at 14:19

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 10 '12 at 13:23

0

Try this way:

<?php
header("Status: 400 Bad Request");
?>

answered Oct 10 '12 at 13:23

yakxxx

2,841
2
21
22

Cant set HTTP header with PHP

3 Answers3