15.5. Zend_Http_Response

15.5.1. Introduction

Zend_Http_Response provides easy access to an HTTP responses message, as well as a set of static methods for parsing HTTP response messages. Usually, Zend_Http_Response is used as an object returned by a Zend_Http_Client request.

In most cases, a Zend_Http_Response object will be instantiated using the factory() method, which reads a string containing an HTTP response message, and returns a new Zend_Http_Response object:

Example 15.24. Instantiating a Zend_Http_Response object using the factory method

<?php
$str = '';
$sock = fsockopen('www.example.com', 80);
$req = 	"GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n" . 
		"Host: www.example.com\r\n" . 
		"Connectoin: close\r\n" . 
		"\r\n";
		
fwrite($sock, $req);
while ($buff = fread($sock, 1024)) 
	$str .= $sock;
	
$response = Zend_Http_Response::factory($str);
?>

You can also use the contractor method to create a new response object, by specifying all the parameters of the response:

public function __construct($code, $headers, $body = null, $version = '1.1', $message = null)

  • $code: The HTTP response code (eg. 200, 404, etc.)

  • $headers: An associative array of HTTP response headers (eg. 'Host' => 'example.com')

  • $body: The response body as a string

  • $version: The HTTP response version (usually 1.0 or 1.1)

  • $message: The HTTP response message (eg 'OK', 'Internal Server Error'). If not specified, the message will be set according to the response code

15.5.2. Boolean Tester Methods

Once a Zend_Http_Response object is instantiated, it provides several methods that can be used to test the type of the response. These all return Boolean true or false:

  • Boolean isSuccessful(): Whether the request was successful or not. Returns TRUE for HTTP 1xx and 2xx response codes

  • Boolean isError(): Whether the response code implies an error or not. Returns TRUE for HTTP 4xx (client errors) and 5xx (server errors) response codes

  • Boolean isRedirect(): Whether the response is a redirection response or not. Returns TRUE for HTTP 3xx response codes

Example 15.25. Using the isError() method to validate a response

<?php
if ($response->isError()) {
  echo "Error transmitting data.\n"
  echo "Server reply was: " . $response->getStatus() . " " . $response->getMessage() . "\n";
}
// .. process the response here...
?>

15.5.3. Accessor Methods

The main goal of the response object is to provide easy access to various response parameters.

  • int getStatus(): Get the HTTP response status code (eg. 200, 504, etc.)

  • string getMessage(): Get the HTTP response status message (eg. "Not Found", "Authorization Required")

  • string getBody(): Get the fully decoded HTTP response body

  • string getRawBody(): Get the raw, possibly encoded HTTP response body. If the body was decoded using GZIP encoding for example, it will not be decoded.

  • array getHeaders(): Get the HTTP response headers as an associative array (eg. 'Content-type' => 'text/html')

  • string|array getHeader($header): Get a specific HTTP response header, specified by $header

  • string getHeadersAsString($status_line = true, $br = "\n"): Get the entire set of headers as a string. If $status_line is true (default), the first status line (eg. "HTTP/1.1 200 OK") will also be returned. Lines are broken with the $br parameter (Can be, for example, "<br />")

  • string asString($br = "\n"): Get the entire response message as a string. Lines are broken with the $br parameter (Can be, for example, "<br />")

Example 15.26. Using Zend_Http_Response Accessor Methods

<?php
if ($response->getStatus() == 200) {
  echo "The request returned the following information:<br />";
  echo $response->getBody();
} else {
  echo "An error occurred while fetching data:<br />";
  echo $response->getStatus() . ": " . $response->getMessage();
}
?>

[Note] Always check return value

Since a response can contain several instances of the same header, the getHeader() method and getHeaders() method may return either a single string, or an array of strings for each header. You should always check whether the returned value is a string or array.

Example 15.27. Accessing Response Headers

<?php
$ctype = $response->getHeader('Content-type');
if (is_array($ctype)) $ctype = $ctype[0];

$body = $response->getBody();
if ($ctype == 'text/html' || $ctype == 'text/xml') {
  $body = htmlentities($body);
}

echo $body;
?>

15.5.4. Static HTTP Response Parsers

The Zend_Http_Response class also includes several internally-used methods for processing and parsing HTTP response messages. These methods are all exposed as static methods, which means they can be used externally, even if you do not need to instantiate a response object, and just want to extract a specific part of the response.

  • int Zend_Http_Response::extractCode($response_str): Extract and return the HTTP response code (eg. 200 or 404) from $response_str

  • string Zend_Http_Response::extractMessage($response_str): Extract and return the HTTP response message (eg. "OK" or "File Not Found") from $response_str

  • string Zend_Http_Response::extractVersion($response_str): : Extract and return the HTTP version (eg. 1.1 or 1.0) from $response_str

  • array Zend_Http_Response::extractHeaders($response_str): Extract and return the HTTP response headers from $response_str as an array

  • string Zend_Http_Response::extractBody($response_str): Extract and return the HTTP response body from $response_str

  • string Zend_Http_Response::responseCodeAsText($code = null, $http11 = true): Get the standard HTTP response message for a response code $code. For example, will return "Internal Server Error" if $code is 500. If $http11 is true (default), will return HTTP/1.1 standard messages - otherwise HTTP/1.0 messages will be returned. If $code is not specified, this method will return all known HTTP response codes as an associative (code => message) array.

Apart from parser methods, the class also includes a set of decoders for common HTTP response transfer encodings:

  • string Zend_Http_Response::decodeChunkedBody($body): Decode a complete "Content-Transfer-Encoding: Chunked" body

  • string Zend_Http_Response::decodeGzip($body): Decode a "Content-Encoding: gzip" body

  • string Zend_Http_Response::decodeDeflate($body): Decode a "Content-Encoding: deflate" body