PHP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples
Dr. Herong Yang, Version 3.00

Controlling HTTP Response Header Lines in PHP Scripts

This chapter provides tutorial examples and notes about HTTP response header line. Topics include understanding of HTTP response structure and standard header lines; controling header lines using the header() function; dumping HTTP responses to view header lines; IIS and PHP engine added header lines for static files and PHP scripts; Location, Content-Type, and Content-Disposition header lines.

What Is an HTTP Response?

HTTP Response Header Lines

header() - Inserting a Raw Header Lines

HttpRequestGet.php - Viewing Header Lines

Response Header Lines of Static Files

HttpHeaderLines.php - Examples of Inserting Header Lines

Location: - Forcing the Browser to Redirect to Another URL

Content-Type: - Generating Non-HTML Response Body

Content-Disposition: - Sending Files for Downloading

Conclusion:

  • HTTP response header lines must be generated before any other outputs from the script, unless you have the output_buffering turned on.
  • Setting header lines in PHP is simple - one built-in function, header(), does everything for you.
  • "Location" is a interesting header line. It tells the browser to redirect itself to a new URL.
  • "Content-disposition" tells the browser to prepare for downloading the entity body.
  • I like the powerful function, readfile(), reading the content of a file and sending it to the HTTP response directly.

Dr. Herong Yang, updated in 2009
Controlling HTTP Response Header Lines in PHP Scripts