Create an Error Page to Handle all HTTP Errors with PHP

From the land of “why the hell didn’t I think of this sooner”… The following is a drop dead simple method to handling all HTTP error (403, 404, 500 etc.) pages with one single PHP file and a few tweaks to your htaccess.

.htaccess Code

The first step is to create/modify your .htaccess file. The following lines will tell the browser to redirect to the named page (errors.php) when any of the error codes listed are returned to the browser.

ErrorDocument 400 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 403 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 404 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 405 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 408 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 500 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 502 /errors.php
ErrorDocument 504 /errors.php

The PHP

The second step is to create a file called “errors.php” in your root directory. Add the following array and save the document.

$status = $_SERVER['REDIRECT_STATUS'];
$codes = array(
 400 => array('400 Bad Request', 'The request cannot be fulfilled due to bad syntax.'),
 403 => array('403 Forbidden', 'The server has refused to fulfil your request.'),
 404 => array('404 Not Found', 'The page you requested was not found on this server.'),
 405 => array('405 Method Not Allowed', 'The method specified in the request is not allowed for the specified resource.'),
 408 => array('408 Request Timeout', 'Your browser failed to send a request in the time allowed by the server.'),
 500 => array('500 Internal Server Error', 'The request was unsuccessful due to an unexpected condition encountered by the server.'),
 502 => array('502 Bad Gateway', 'The server received an invalid response while trying to carry out the request.'),
 504 => array('504 Gateway Timeout', 'The upstream server failed to send a request in the time allowed by the server.'),
);

$title = $codes[$status][0];
$message = $codes[$status][1];
if ($title == false || strlen($status) != 3) {
 $message = 'Please supply a valid HTTP status code.';
}

echo '<h1>Hold up! '.$title.' detected</h1>
<p>'.$message.'</p>';

<span style="font-family: Consolas, Monaco, monospace; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">

Tweak and Enjoy

Adjust the text in the arrays to suit your needs and test it out. Super Simple!

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