note 53751 added to function.header

I use a custom PHP 404 page that does several things: • Checks the database for a "virtual" page matching the missing page address, and if found, includes and displays it, issuing an HTTP 200 OK status. The client browser receives the page contents and never even knows that the page doesn't actually exist on the server. • Checks the database for a redirect from this missing page address to another address, and if found, does the redirect by issuing an HTTP 302 Object Moved status and Location header. • Tries to fix common address errors, such as removing periods or extra slashes at the end of the address, and then checks for a physical page with a matching address, a virtual page with a matching address, or a redirect, and takes the appropriate action. • If all of the above fail, it simply shows a friendly "Page Not Found" error. • In the case of redirects and genuine missing pages, the missing page address (and the number of hits on it) is logged to the database. In the case of genuine missing pages, an email is also sent to me so I can identify and fix broken links. The "virtual" page behavior is perhaps the most useful, as it allows me to create totally dynamic pages on the server but use static addresses for them. However, on one particular server on which I used this system, my HTTP 200 header wasn't getting sent correctly: <?php header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK"); ?> Instead, the browser received a 404, and even if the virtual page content was included and sent correctly (it was), IE showed its typical 404 error page instead based on the status code (but only if "show friendly HTTP error messages" is checked, which is the default). Finally found this note in an older or alternate version of the PHP manual (at http://academ.hvcc.edu/~kantopet/php/manual/function.header.html): Note: In PHP 3, this only works when PHP is compiled as an Apache module. You can achieve the same effect using the Status header. <?php header("Status: 404 Not Found"); ?> Though our server uses PHP/4.3.10, I thought this was worth a try, so I tried issuing both commands: <?php header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK"); header("Status: 200 OK"); ?> And, in fact, it worked. So if you find that using header("HTTP/1.1 ###") isn't working, try the header("Status: ###") instead or as well. ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.header.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+53751 Delete: added to the manual -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53751&report=yes&reason=added+to+the+manual Delete: bad code -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53751&report=yes&reason=bad+code Delete: spam -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53751&report=yes&reason=spam Delete: useless -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53751&report=yes&reason=useless Delete: other reasons -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53751&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+53751&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php