Advanced PHP

Apache's ErrorDocument directive can come in handy. For example, this line in your Apache configuration file:

ErrorDocument 404 /error.php

Can be used to redirect all 404 errors to a PHP script. The following server variables are of interest:

• $REDIRECT_ERROR_NOTES - File does not exist: /docroot/bogus

• $REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD - GET

• $REDIRECT_STATUS - 404

• $REDIRECT_URL - /docroot/bogus

Don't forget to send a 404 status if you choose not to redirect to a real page.


<? Header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found'); ?>

Interesting uses

• Search for closest matching valid URL and redirect

• Use attempted url text as a DB keyword lookup

• Funky caching