How can I reliably test for 404 errors in my PHP scraping code?

Testing URLs for 404 in PHP: A Comprehensive Guide

Finding that URLs return unexpected 404 errors can disrupt your scraping code. To address this, it's essential to implement a test at the beginning of your code to check for this specific status code.

fsockopen Approach

One suggested method involves using fsockopen(). However, if the URL has a redirect, fsockopen() may return an empty result for all values.

curl Approach

A more reliable approach utilizes PHP's curl bindings. With curl, you can retrieve the HTTP error code using curl_getinfo(). Here's an example:

$handle = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);

$response = curl_exec($handle);

$httpCode = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
if ($httpCode == 404) {
    // Handle 404 error here
}

curl_close($handle);

// Handle the response as needed

This code initializes a curl handle for the specified $url, sets the option to return the response as a string, executes the request, and retrieves the HTTP code. If the code is 404, it navigates the appropriate error handling code.

Conclusion

By employing curl's curl_getinfo() function, you can effectively check for 404 errors in your PHP scraping code, preventing downstream disruptions and ensuring the stability of your data extraction process.

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