Test website exists in PHP

[PoorDoggie]

I have tried the file_exists() function, but it doesn't seem to work with external websites. Is there anyway I can see if an external website (www.thiswebsite.com/scrpt.php?a=asd) exists?

Thanks
Tom

 

[labrocca]

curl

 

[PoorDoggie]

curl

hmm... thanks, but how would I use that?

Thanks
Tom

 

[Noobie]

http://ca.php.net/curl

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://my.domain.com/my_url.php" ); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,10); //added
$result= curl_exec($ch);
if (empty($result))
{
    echo "doesn't exist";
}
else
{
    echo "exists";
}

 

[PoorDoggie]

thanks everyone!