Redirect users to a new page

[Mr Chris]

Afternoon All.  I wish to re-direct users to a 404 error page on my site if an article does not exist in my database.  Here's my code:

 

 

$SQL = "SELECT  headline FROM news WHERE news_id=".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['news_id']); $result = mysql_query($SQL) OR die(mysql_error()); $num = mysql_num_rows($result);//** Check that the entry exists otherwise send to error pageif ($num > 0) {  $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);  $headline = $row['headline'];} else {  echo "Why is this printed? - I should be leaving this page?";  header("Location: error.php");  exit;}

 

 

Now the wierd thing is that when I enter a news_id  for a value that does not exist it prints the message Why is this printed? - I should be leaving this page? so it's actually going to the ELSE statement which is good, but surely it should not do this as I ask the page to re-direct?

 

Thank you

[litebearer]

are you getting any error messages?

[Pikachu2000]

How can you know which part of the conditional should be executed if you don't find out what the value of $num is by echoing it?

[Mr Chris]

Thanks but nope, no error messages.  As for the value of $num I do find it out $num = mysql_num_rows($result)?  Just wondered if there was anything obvious?

[litebearer]

have you tried using a meta redirect?

[Pawn]

There's nothing wrong with the code. Are you sure the headers aren't already sent?

 

if(!headers_sent()) {
    header('Location: error.php');
    exit;
}
echo "Headers already sent!";

[Mr Chris]

There's nothing wrong with the code. Are you sure the headers aren't already sent?

 

Thats the problem - any way around this apart from echoing a message saying there is no link or a meta redirect?

[Pawn]

Usually you can reorder the structure of the PHP such that checks that send headers occur at the start of the code, before any output begins. Is there some reason this isn't an option in your case?

[jcbones]

Also, some browsers (Chrome being one) will not redirect unless you also set the Status to 200:  header('Status: 200');

[Mr Chris]

Thanks Yeah, I can do.  Just how i've created the page.  Thanks

[Mr Chris]

Actually, sorry how would I reorder the structure of my PHP to do this.  I've misunderstood, do you mean re-order what i've done here?:

 

$SQL = "SELECT headline FROM news WHERE news_id=".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['news_id']); 
$result = mysql_query($SQL) OR die(mysql_error()); 
$num = mysql_num_rows($result);

//** Check that the entry exists otherwise send to error page
if ($num > 0) {
  $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
  echo $headline = $row['headline'];
} else {
  header("Location: error.php");
  exit;
}

[BlueSkyIS]

put that code before any output; before any html, before any empty spaces, before any content is sent to the browser.

[Mr Chris]

Thanks.  Had another thought and added

 

<? ob_start();?>

 

To the first part of the script.  That won't cause any issues will it and fine to do it this way?