send custom HTTP response with PHP

Question

I want to send a custom HTTP response back to an application requesting a GET to a php script. The body is will be in binary format (octet-streams). I'm wondering if there is a simple way to do this? I am looking into the HttpResponse class in PECL but is having trouble installing it right now. I do not really need all the other functionalities that goes with it so I'm looking for something simpler.

Any help would be appreciated.

See `header()` documentation and comments at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.header.php — piotrekkr, Jun 17 '13 at 11:45

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 11:46

2

You can always set HTTP Headers using header() function, and then simply output binary data using print, echo or any other usual way. Send Content-Type http header to octet stream and it should work all right.

answered Jun 17 '13 at 11:46

Mołot

699
12
36

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 17 '13 at 11:47

2

PHP has a header() function built in, so you can customise your response without requiring extra libraries:

<?php

header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('X-Powered-By: l3utterfly');

echo $binary_data;

?>

answered Jun 17 '13 at 11:47

Emily Shepherd

1,369
9
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Oh... I never knew you can echo binary data... (I'm new to PHP :P) Thanks for the answer, this is much simpler than expected! – l3utterfly Jun 17 '13 at 14:05
Follow up question: Can I use header to output custom headers? For example header("custom-header: 121316818"); My application will know how to parse this so I'm not really concerned with conforming to HTTP standards. – l3utterfly Jun 17 '13 at 14:08

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 11:44

You can use the header function to send back whatever response you want. If you want to send back custome response codes, you could use:

<?
  $protocol = (isset($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']) ? $_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL'] : 'HTTP/1.0');

  //change the code and message to whatever. But I would keep it valid codes so browsers can handle it.
  //see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

  header($protocol . ' 404 Not Found');
  exit();
?>

And if you want to send binary data, change the header to the correct content-type and echo the binary data.

send custom HTTP response with PHP

3 Answers3