PHP get_headers() Function

The PHP get_headers() function returns an array with the headers sent by the server in response to a HTTP request.

Syntax

get_headers(url, associative, context)

Parameters

`url`	`Required.` Specify the target URL.
`associative`	`Optional.` If set to true, this function parses the response and sets the array's keys.
`context`	`Optional.` Specify the context resource created with stream_context_create() function.

Return Value

Returns an indexed or associative array with the headers, or false on failure.

Example: get_headers() example

The example below shows the usage of get_headers() function.

<?php
$url = "https://www.alphacodingskills.com";

//fetching headers
$header = get_headers($url);

//displaying the result
print_r($header);
?>

The output of the above code will be:

Array
(
    [0] => HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    [1] => Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:05:07 GMT
    [2] => Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)
    [3] => Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=v2divqeg27m19balee6mmtmuas; path=/
    [4] => Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
    [5] => Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
    [6] => Pragma: no-cache
    [7] => Vary: Accept-Encoding
    [8] => Connection: close
    [9] => Transfer-Encoding: chunked
    [10] => Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
)

Example: using associative parameter

If the associative parameter is set to true, the function parses the response and sets the array's keys. Consider the example below:

<?php
$url = "https://www.alphacodingskills.com";

//fetching headers
$header = get_headers($url, true);

//displaying the result
print_r($header);
?>

The output of the above code will be:

Array
(
    [0] => HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    [Date] => Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:09:57 GMT
    [Server] => Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)
    [Set-Cookie] => PHPSESSID=cbf8hu5i5j0enpth6pg4agifp4; path=/
    [Expires] => Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
    [Cache-Control] => no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
    [Pragma] => no-cache
    [Vary] => Accept-Encoding
    [Connection] => close
    [Transfer-Encoding] => chunked
    [Content-Type] => text/html; charset=UTF-8
)

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