[SOLVED] PHP error

[transparencia]

I got this error on a code that used to work fine.

 

Warning: file_get_contents(http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=myip) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error in /home/account/public_html/index.php on line 63

 

Line 63 of index.php says:

$ip = ($_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]);

 

What is wrong?

[premiso]

Post about 10-20 lines of code around line 63.

[transparencia]

Here it is:

 

$ip = ($_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]);
$country = file_get_contents("http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=".$ip); 

switch ($country) {
    case 'US': display something
    break;
    case 'UK': display other thing
    break;
etc....

[Kieran Menor]

My guess would be that the cause is the target (http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=myip) actually returning a HTTP 500 error, as described in the error message. Just a hunch. :3

[.josh]

The error tells you what's wrong. you make a call to file_get_contents to a url and it failed, because there was a 500 error at that url.

[transparencia]

Indeed, my bad. I presumed the error was on my server.

 

Is there a way to avoid this, some code to check if everything is alright with their server?

[Kieran Menor]

It's just a warning, so you could stuff an @ in front of the file_get_contents. It would still fail, but just shut up about it.

[xtopolis]

@transparencia

You could cURL the url and check the headers for validity.

 

@Boom.dk

That's a fairly serious warning..  Better to fix it than avoid it.

[.josh]

you could always suppress it and check what $country is:

 

$country = @file_get_contents("http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=".$ip);
if ($country) {
   // success, do something
} else {
  // fail, do something
}

[.josh]

@Boom.dk

That's a fairly serious warning..  Better to fix it than avoid it.

 

You can't fix that sort of thing.  He has no control over some 3rd party site.  The 'better' thing to do would be to suppress it and check if it failed or not (as I showed in previous post)

[Kieran Menor]

What makes it particularly serious? It's just a HTTP error. In any case, the target script seems to be broken, so I don't think there's much to do about it.

[.josh]

What makes it particularly serious? It's just a HTTP error. In any case, the target script seems to be broken, so I don't think there's much to do about it.

 

well it *could* be serious if the rest of your site depends on info gathered from the file_get_contents...

[xtopolis]

I guess I misinterpreted what was meant when using "suppress".  As CV showed, you could suppress and then handle.  I assumed Boom.dk meant suppress and forget as he did not post any other solution.

 

And yes, I also imagined that a country check might be used for locale settings on the page or something.  But it was mainly the "supress and forget" assumption.

[Kieran Menor]

Well, yeah.

 

@transparencia:

From what I can gather, you are trying to determine a user's location from his/her IP. I think the best approach to solve this problem is to have a local list of IP ranges and their matching countries rather than relying on a 3rd party.

 

The IP ranges can be obtained from a site like this one:

http://www.ipaddresslocation.org/

[transparencia]

That is want I'm going to do. It's better that way, thank you all for your quick help.