What is the fastest way to determine if a URL exists in PHP?

Question

I need to create a function that returns if a URL is reachable or valid.

I am currently using something like the following to determine a valid url:

Answer 1

You can use curl as follows:

$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true); // set to HEAD request
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); // don't output the response
curl_exec($ch);
$valid = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE) == 200;
curl_close($ch);