file_get_contents() fails on one URL, but not others?

PHP
1

I need to make a proxy for my ajax requests. So far it looks like this:


$baseurl = "http://wfs.plansystem.dk/geoserver/wfs?";
//$baseurl = "http://wfs.plansystem.dk/geoserver/welcome.do";
//$baseurl = "http://www.google.com/";
$response = file_get_contents($baseurl);
echo $response;

The odd thing is, I get a PHP error:

[INDENT]Warning: file_get_contents(http://wfs.plansystem.dk/geoserver/wfs?) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error in C:\xampp\xampp\htdocs\visplaner\proxy\proxy_plansystem_wfs.php on line 12
[/INDENT]
But if I paste the $baseurl value into my browser, I get normal html back from the remote server (All right, it’s an exception - but it’s still a response).

Any other URL I can think of to open (including the geoserver/welcome.do above) with file_get_contents(), my script echos the response. But not with this particular one.

Any idea why?

2

That server probably shunts the request around, .htaccess and the like etc, either that or it is smart enough to recognise the request is not a real browser. You’d need to use cURL to set correct headers etc.

In the first instance , install LiveHTTPHeaders extension for FF, and replay a request in your browser and see what is going on.

[has a go himself] Hang on, it throws an error page to browsers too, looks like site has problems or that is an incomplete URL etc.


GeoServer - Exception
The following exception was thrown:
java.lang.NullPointerException
3

you might need to mimic a browsers behavior a bit more closely. For example, you might not be sending certain http headers that the server wants. Some websites load balance by setting a cookie and then redirecting you to the same page(assigning you a server).

try livehttpheaders firefox extension to see what’s going on.

4

dur…

that url returns a http status of 500. file_get_contents() assumes failure when you get that status.

5

Thanks for your help. I think I figured it out:
When I request the “bad url” I get an HTTP-header with an error back - AND some html to show in the browser. But the file_get_contents() stops at the HTTP-header and doesn’t read the content.

The odd thing is - the script actually works now (I needed to set an XML header, though):


$baseurl = "http://wfs.plansystem.dk/geoserver/wfs?";
$query = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$final_uri = $baseurl.$query;
$response = file_get_contents($final_uri);
header ("Content-Type:text/xml");
echo $response;