International PHP Conference Berlin 2025

http_response_code

(PHP 5 >= 5.4.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

http_response_codeGet or Set the HTTP response code

Description

http_response_code(int $response_code = 0): int|bool

Gets or sets the HTTP response status code.

Parameters

response_code

The optional response_code will set the response code.

Return Values

If response_code is provided, then the previous status code will be returned. If response_code is not provided, then the current status code will be returned. Both of these values will default to a 200 status code if used in a web server environment.

false will be returned if response_code is not provided and it is not invoked in a web server environment (such as from a CLI application). true will be returned if response_code is provided and it is not invoked in a web server environment (but only when no previous response status has been set).

Examples

Example #1 Using http_response_code() in a web server environment

<?php

// Get the current response code and set a new one
var_dump(http_response_code(404));

// Get the new response code
var_dump(http_response_code());
?>

The above example will output:

int(200)
int(404)

Example #2 Using http_response_code() in a CLI environment

<?php

// Get the current default response code
var_dump(http_response_code());

// Set a response code
var_dump(http_response_code(201));

// Get the new response code
var_dump(http_response_code());
?>

The above example will output:

bool(false)
bool(true)
int(201)

See Also

  • header() - Send a raw HTTP header
  • headers_list() - Returns a list of response headers sent (or ready to send)

add a note

User Contributed Notes 12 notes

up
196
craig at craigfrancis dot co dot uk
12 years ago
If your version of PHP does not include this function:

<?php

if (!function_exists('http_response_code')) {
function
http_response_code($code = NULL) {

if (
$code !== NULL) {

switch (
$code) {
case
100: $text = 'Continue'; break;
case
101: $text = 'Switching Protocols'; break;
case
200: $text = 'OK'; break;
case
201: $text = 'Created'; break;
case
202: $text = 'Accepted'; break;
case
203: $text = 'Non-Authoritative Information'; break;
case
204: $text = 'No Content'; break;
case
205: $text = 'Reset Content'; break;
case
206: $text = 'Partial Content'; break;
case
300: $text = 'Multiple Choices'; break;
case
301: $text = 'Moved Permanently'; break;
case
302: $text = 'Moved Temporarily'; break;
case
303: $text = 'See Other'; break;
case
304: $text = 'Not Modified'; break;
case
305: $text = 'Use Proxy'; break;
case
400: $text = 'Bad Request'; break;
case
401: $text = 'Unauthorized'; break;
case
402: $text = 'Payment Required'; break;
case
403: $text = 'Forbidden'; break;
case
404: $text = 'Not Found'; break;
case
405: $text = 'Method Not Allowed'; break;
case
406: $text = 'Not Acceptable'; break;
case
407: $text = 'Proxy Authentication Required'; break;
case
408: $text = 'Request Time-out'; break;
case
409: $text = 'Conflict'; break;
case
410: $text = 'Gone'; break;
case
411: $text = 'Length Required'; break;
case
412: $text = 'Precondition Failed'; break;
case
413: $text = 'Request Entity Too Large'; break;
case
414: $text = 'Request-URI Too Large'; break;
case
415: $text = 'Unsupported Media Type'; break;
case
500: $text = 'Internal Server Error'; break;
case
501: $text = 'Not Implemented'; break;
case
502: $text = 'Bad Gateway'; break;
case
503: $text = 'Service Unavailable'; break;
case
504: $text = 'Gateway Time-out'; break;
case
505: $text = 'HTTP Version not supported'; break;
default:
exit(
'Unknown http status code "' . htmlentities($code) . '"');
break;
}

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

header($protocol . ' ' . $code . ' ' . $text);

$GLOBALS['http_response_code'] = $code;

} else {

$code = (isset($GLOBALS['http_response_code']) ? $GLOBALS['http_response_code'] : 200);

}

return
$code;

}
}

?>

In this example I am using $GLOBALS, but you can use whatever storage mechanism you like... I don't think there is a way to return the current status code:

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52555

For reference the error codes I got from PHP's source code:

http://lxr.php.net/opengrok/xref/PHP_5_4/sapi/cgi/cgi_main.c#354

And how the current http header is sent, with the variables it uses:

http://lxr.php.net/opengrok/xref/PHP_5_4/main/SAPI.c#856
up
65
Stefan W
10 years ago
Note that you can NOT set arbitrary response codes with this function, only those that are known to PHP (or the SAPI PHP is running on).

The following codes currently work as expected (with PHP running as Apache module):
200 – 208, 226
300 – 305, 307, 308
400 – 417, 422 – 424, 426, 428 – 429, 431
500 – 508, 510 – 511

Codes 0, 100, 101, and 102 will be sent as "200 OK".

Everything else will result in "500 Internal Server Error".

If you want to send responses with a freestyle status line, you need to use the `header()` function:

<?php header("HTTP/1.0 418 I'm A Teapot"); ?>
up
16
Thomas A. P.
9 years ago
When setting the response code to non-standard ones like 420, Apache outputs 500 Internal Server Error.

This happens when using header(0,0,420) and http_response_code(420).
Use header('HTTP/1.1 420 Enhance Your Calm') instead.

Note that the response code in the string IS interpreted and used in the access log and output via http_response_code().
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8
divinity76 at gmail dot com
4 years ago
if you need a response code not supported by http_response_code(), such as WebDAV / RFC4918's "HTTP 507 Insufficient Storage", try:

<?php
header
($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL'] . ' 507 Insufficient Storage');
?>
result: something like

HTTP/1.1 507 Insufficient Storage
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24
Anonymous
11 years ago
Status codes as an array:

<?php
$http_status_codes
= array(100 => "Continue", 101 => "Switching Protocols", 102 => "Processing", 200 => "OK", 201 => "Created", 202 => "Accepted", 203 => "Non-Authoritative Information", 204 => "No Content", 205 => "Reset Content", 206 => "Partial Content", 207 => "Multi-Status", 300 => "Multiple Choices", 301 => "Moved Permanently", 302 => "Found", 303 => "See Other", 304 => "Not Modified", 305 => "Use Proxy", 306 => "(Unused)", 307 => "Temporary Redirect", 308 => "Permanent Redirect", 400 => "Bad Request", 401 => "Unauthorized", 402 => "Payment Required", 403 => "Forbidden", 404 => "Not Found", 405 => "Method Not Allowed", 406 => "Not Acceptable", 407 => "Proxy Authentication Required", 408 => "Request Timeout", 409 => "Conflict", 410 => "Gone", 411 => "Length Required", 412 => "Precondition Failed", 413 => "Request Entity Too Large", 414 => "Request-URI Too Long", 415 => "Unsupported Media Type", 416 => "Requested Range Not Satisfiable", 417 => "Expectation Failed", 418 => "I'm a teapot", 419 => "Authentication Timeout", 420 => "Enhance Your Calm", 422 => "Unprocessable Entity", 423 => "Locked", 424 => "Failed Dependency", 424 => "Method Failure", 425 => "Unordered Collection", 426 => "Upgrade Required", 428 => "Precondition Required", 429 => "Too Many Requests", 431 => "Request Header Fields Too Large", 444 => "No Response", 449 => "Retry With", 450 => "Blocked by Windows Parental Controls", 451 => "Unavailable For Legal Reasons", 494 => "Request Header Too Large", 495 => "Cert Error", 496 => "No Cert", 497 => "HTTP to HTTPS", 499 => "Client Closed Request", 500 => "Internal Server Error", 501 => "Not Implemented", 502 => "Bad Gateway", 503 => "Service Unavailable", 504 => "Gateway Timeout", 505 => "HTTP Version Not Supported", 506 => "Variant Also Negotiates", 507 => "Insufficient Storage", 508 => "Loop Detected", 509 => "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded", 510 => "Not Extended", 511 => "Network Authentication Required", 598 => "Network read timeout error", 599 => "Network connect timeout error");
?>

Source: Wikipedia "List_of_HTTP_status_codes"
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5
viaujoc at videotron dot ca
4 years ago
Do not mix the use of http_response_code() and manually setting the response code header because the actual HTTP status code being returned by the web server may not end up as expected. http_response_code() does not work if the response code has previously been set using the header() function. Example:

<?php
header
('HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized');
http_response_code(403);
print(
http_response_code());
?>

The raw HTTP response will be (notice the actual status code on the first line does not match the printed http_response_code in the body):

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2020 13:49:08 GMT
Server: Apache
Connection: Upgrade, Keep-Alive
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

403

I only tested it on Apache. I am not sure if this behavior is specific to Apache or common to all PHP distributions.
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11
Rob Zazueta
11 years ago
The note above from "Anonymous" is wrong. I'm running this behind the AWS Elastic Loadbalancer and trying the header(':'.$error_code...) method mentioned above is treated as invalid HTTP.

The documentation for the header() function has the right way to implement this if you're still on < php 5.4:

<?php
header
("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
?>
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15
Anonymous
12 years ago
If you don't have PHP 5.4 and want to change the returned status code, you can simply write:
<?php
header
(':', true, $statusCode);
?>

The ':' are mandatory, or it won't work
up
7
Steven
9 years ago
http_response_code is basically a shorthand way of writing a http status header, with the added bonus that PHP will work out a suitable Reason Phrase to provide by matching your response code to one of the values in an enumeration it maintains within php-src/main/http_status_codes.h. Note that this means your response code must match a response code that PHP knows about. You can't create your own response codes using this method, however you can using the header method.

In summary - The differences between "http_response_code" and "header" for setting response codes:

1. Using http_response_code will cause PHP to match and apply a Reason Phrase from a list of Reason Phrases that are hard-coded into the PHP source code.

2. Because of point 1 above, if you use http_response_code you must set a code that PHP knows about. You can't set your own custom code, however you can set a custom code (and Reason Phrase) if you use the header method.
up
7
Richard F.
11 years ago
At least on my side with php-fpm and nginx this method does not change the text in the response, only the code.

<?php

// HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
http_response_code(404);

?>

The resulting response is HTTP/1.1 404 OK
up
8
stephen at bobs-bits dot com
10 years ago
It's not mentioned explicitly, but the return value when SETTING, is the OLD status code.
e.g.
<?php

$a
= http_response_code();
$b = http_response_code(202);
$c = http_response_code();

var_dump($a, $b, $c);

// Result:
// int(200)
// int(200)
// int(202)
?>
up
1
yefremov {dot} sasha () gmail {dot} com
9 years ago
@craig at craigfrancis dot co dot uk@ wrote the function that replaces the original. It is very usefull, but has a bug. The original http_response_code always returns the previous or current code, not the code you are setting now. Here is my fixed version. I also use $GLOBALS to store the current code, but trigger_error() instead of exit. So now, how the function will behave in the case of error lies on the error handler. Or you can change it back to exit().

if (!function_exists('http_response_code')) {
function http_response_code($code = NULL) {
$prev_code = (isset($GLOBALS['http_response_code']) ? $GLOBALS['http_response_code'] : 200);

if ($code === NULL) {
return $prev_code;
}

switch ($code) {
case 100: $text = 'Continue'; break;
case 101: $text = 'Switching Protocols'; break;
case 200: $text = 'OK'; break;
case 201: $text = 'Created'; break;
case 202: $text = 'Accepted'; break;
case 203: $text = 'Non-Authoritative Information'; break;
case 204: $text = 'No Content'; break;
case 205: $text = 'Reset Content'; break;
case 206: $text = 'Partial Content'; break;
case 300: $text = 'Multiple Choices'; break;
case 301: $text = 'Moved Permanently'; break;
case 302: $text = 'Moved Temporarily'; break;
case 303: $text = 'See Other'; break;
case 304: $text = 'Not Modified'; break;
case 305: $text = 'Use Proxy'; break;
case 400: $text = 'Bad Request'; break;
case 401: $text = 'Unauthorized'; break;
case 402: $text = 'Payment Required'; break;
case 403: $text = 'Forbidden'; break;
case 404: $text = 'Not Found'; break;
case 405: $text = 'Method Not Allowed'; break;
case 406: $text = 'Not Acceptable'; break;
case 407: $text = 'Proxy Authentication Required'; break;
case 408: $text = 'Request Time-out'; break;
case 409: $text = 'Conflict'; break;
case 410: $text = 'Gone'; break;
case 411: $text = 'Length Required'; break;
case 412: $text = 'Precondition Failed'; break;
case 413: $text = 'Request Entity Too Large'; break;
case 414: $text = 'Request-URI Too Large'; break;
case 415: $text = 'Unsupported Media Type'; break;
case 500: $text = 'Internal Server Error'; break;
case 501: $text = 'Not Implemented'; break;
case 502: $text = 'Bad Gateway'; break;
case 503: $text = 'Service Unavailable'; break;
case 504: $text = 'Gateway Time-out'; break;
case 505: $text = 'HTTP Version not supported'; break;
default:
trigger_error('Unknown http status code ' . $code, E_USER_ERROR); // exit('Unknown http status code "' . htmlentities($code) . '"');
return $prev_code;
}

$protocol = (isset($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']) ? $_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL'] : 'HTTP/1.0');
header($protocol . ' ' . $code . ' ' . $text);
$GLOBALS['http_response_code'] = $code;

// original function always returns the previous or current code
return $prev_code;
}
}
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