Checking whether a URL exists in PHP

There is no built in function to check if a particular URL exists, but you can easily write one. The following is a simple method, or you can try this one which takes more code, but allows more control.

Copy and paste the following code into a new file and try it out!

 
<?php
 
function doesUrlExist($url) {
 
    if (!empty($url) && @fopen($url, "r")) {
 
        // The URL is not empty and we can read it, so return true
        return true;
 
    }
 
    // The URL was either empty, or not found, so return false.
    return false;
 
}
 
// Test a bad URL
$url = "http://www.somedomain.com/index.html";
echo (doesUrlExist($url) ? "The URL at $url exists!" : "The URL at $url could not be found!");
echo ("<br />");
 
// Test a good URL
$url = "http://www.aratide.com";
echo (doesUrlExist($url) ? "The URL at $url exists!" : "The URL at $url could not be found!");
 
?>