Bug #61417 [NEW]: header() does not necessarily send a raw HTTP header

From: Operating system: PHP version: Irrelevant Package: Documentation problem Bug Type: Bug Bug description:header() does not necessarily send a raw HTTP header Description: ------------ http://ca2.php.net/manual/en/function.header.php contains: header — Send a raw HTTP header header() is used to send a raw HTTP header. See the » HTTP/1.1 specification for more information on HTTP headers. However, sending raw HTTP headers is only one of header()'s functions. Other important functions include sending a Status-Line and setting CGI fields. In fact, the documentation page itself shows such examples: There are two special-case header calls. The first is a header that starts with the string "HTTP/" (case is not significant), which will be used to figure out the HTTP status code to send. For example, if you have configured Apache to use a PHP script to handle requests for missing files (using the ErrorDocument directive), you may want to make sure that your script generates the proper status code. <?php header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found"); ?> For FastCGI you must use the following for a 404 response: <?php header("Status: 404 Not Found"); ?> The second special case is the "Location:" header. Not only does it send this header back to the browser, but it also returns a REDIRECT (302) status code to the browser unless the 201 or a 3xx status code has already been set. <?php header("Location: http://www.example.com/"); /* Redirect browser */ /* Make sure that code below does not get executed when we redirect. */ exit; ?> CGI fields are documented in http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3875#section-6.3 Status is *not* an HTTP header - running header("Status: 404 Not Found"); when not in CGI mode will send a raw "Status" HTTP header, which is undefined. -- Edit bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61417&edit=1 -- Try a snapshot (PHP 5.4): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=trysnapshot54 Try a snapshot (PHP 5.3): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=trysnapshot53 Try a snapshot (trunk): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=trysnapshottrunk Fixed in SVN: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=fixed Fixed in SVN and need be documented: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=needdocs Fixed in release: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=needscript Try newer version: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=oldversion Not developer issue: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=support Expected behavior: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=notwrong Not enough info: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=submittedtwice register_globals: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=globals PHP 4 support discontinued: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=php4 Daylight Savings: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=dst IIS Stability: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=gnused Floating point limitations: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=float No Zend Extensions: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=61417&r=mysqlcfg