Exception Handling

[ibanez270dx]

Hello,

I have a PHP page that basically just takes some user input (dates) and puts them into a URL which points to a WEBrick server and initializes some Ruby scripts. Everything works perfectly fine, with one exception. I want to ensure that when my WEBrick server gets kicked or is down for some reason, that PHP can realize it and act accordingly. I tried some basic PHP exception handling, but to no avail. What I have is this:

 

       try
        {
         echo "<META http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"0;URL=http://harrier:4243/cpa?from=$_POST[FromDate]&to=$_POST[ToDate]\">";
         exit;
        }
        catch(Exception $e)
        {
         echo 'Message: ' .$e->getMessage();
        }

 

...which leaves me with a 404 if my WEBrick server is down. Thus, I suppose I need PHP to "touch" and ensure the WEBrick server is alive before executing the META refresh tag. Can this be done? If so, how?

 

Any and all help is appreciated!

 

Thanks,

- Jeff

[discomatt]

Use a file_get_contents or similar to grab the contents of the URL.

 

Check for specific error text ( 404 might be a little vague and throw false positives, but it all depends on the data you expect )

 

 

$str = file_get_contents( 'http://harrier:4243/cpa?from='.$_POST['FromDate'].'&to='.$_POST['ToDate'] );

if (  strpos( $str, '404' ) === FALSE )
    echo 'Server is down, man';

[ibanez270dx]

thanks, but that just gives me a 500 error... any other thoughts?

[discomatt]

What's giving you the 500 error? file_get_contents? PHP version?

 

Try using fopen/fread to get the contents

[ibanez270dx]

I just tried using an fopen type thing - it reads that it's up when the server is up, but when it's down, it just times out.

 

Perhaps a better way to go about this is to check if my WEBrick service is running on port 4243? Is that possible?