How can one check to see if a remote file exists using PHP?

Question

The best I could find, an if fclose fopen type thing, makes the page load really slowly.

Basically what I\'m trying to do is

Answer 1

This can be done by obtaining the HTTP Status code (404 = not found) which is possible with file_get_contentsDocs making use of context options. The following code takes redirects into account and will return the status code of the final destination (Demo):

$url = 'http://example.com/';
$code = FALSE;

$options['http'] = array(
    'method' => "HEAD",
    'ignore_errors' => 1
);

$body = file_get_contents($url, NULL, stream_context_create($options));

foreach($http_response_header as $header)
    sscanf($header, 'HTTP/%*d.%*d %d', $code);

echo "Status code: $code";

If you don't want to follow redirects, you can do it similar (Demo):

$url = 'http://example.com/';
$code = FALSE;

$options['http'] = array(
    'method' => "HEAD",
    'ignore_errors' => 1,
    'max_redirects' => 0
);

$body = file_get_contents($url, NULL, stream_context_create($options));

sscanf($http_response_header[0], 'HTTP/%*d.%*d %d', $code);

echo "Status code: $code";

Some of the functions, options and variables in use are explained with more detail on a blog post I've written: HEAD first with PHP Streams.