Checking remote pages exist

[uprightdog]

I need to check if several pages on a remote server exist or not. file_get_contents works sometimes, but other at other times fails with HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden in... This despite the page existing, and despite my having succesfully checked for other pages on the very same server.

Is there any reliable way of achieving this?

[Bill Palmer]

fopen() or, if available, curl.

Good luck.

[pkSML]

Curl is the fastest connection to a server that I know of.

Just execute a HTTP HEAD command, rather than a GET command to retrieve the status code.