PHP build-in HTTP server and the HEAD method

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:54 AM, Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa
ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net wrote:

Hello,

It is probably me but it seems like the build-in HTTP server does not well
support the HEAD method. Here is my following test case. First, the foo.php
file:

<?php

var_dump($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']);

By definition, a HEAD request MUST NOT return a message-body.

This works as expected:

<?php
header("X-Request-Method: " . $_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"]);
?>

Here is how it works: main/SAPI.c has code that set
SG(request_info).headers_only = 1 for HEAD requests, and as a
consequence php_request_shutdown() does not flush the output buffer
(if any) to the client. You can force a body to be sent (but that's
likely not going to work with every SAPI) by not having an output
buffer or by calling ob_end_flush() yourself.

Damien

Hi,

As far as I can see everything works as expected: Because HEAD-requests
should not send any content, you don't get any.

Regards,
Sebastian

2012/9/12 Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net

Hello,

It is probably me but it seems like the build-in HTTP server does not well
support the HEAD method. Here is my following test case. First, the foo.php
file:

<?php

var_dump($SERVER['REQUEST**METHOD']);

And then:

$ # Run the server.
$ php -S 127.0.0.1:8888 -t . foo.php > /dev/null 2>&1 &

$ # Test with POST.
$ curl -v -X POST 127.0.0.1:8888

• About to connect() to 127.0.0.1 port 8888 (#0)
• Trying 127.0.0.1...
• connected
• Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 8888 (#0)
  > POST / HTTP/1.1
  > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 (...) libcurl/7.24.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8r
  zlib/1.2.5
  > Host: 127.0.0.1:8888
  > Accept: /
  >
  < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  < Host: 127.0.0.1:8888
  < Connection: close
  < X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.0-dev
  < Content-type: text/html
  <
  string(4) "POST"
• Closing connection #0
  $ # It works, cool.

$ # Now, test with HEAD.
$ curl -v -X HEAD 127.0.0.1:8888

• About to connect() to 127.0.0.1 port 8888 (#0)
• Trying 127.0.0.1...
• connected
• Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 8888 (#0)
  > HEAD / HTTP/1.1
  > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 (...) libcurl/7.24.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8r
  zlib/1.2.5
  > Host: 127.0.0.1:8888
  > Accept: /
  >
  < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  < Host: 127.0.0.1:8888
  < Connection: close
  < X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.0-dev
  < Content-type: text/html
  <
• Closing connection #0

I have to admit that I don't understand, even by looking at the source
code.

Thoughts?
Thanks.

--
Ivan Enderlin
Developer of Hoa
http://hoa.42/ or http://hoa-project.net/

PhD. student at DISC/Femto-ST (Vesontio) and INRIA (Cassis)
http://disc.univ-fcomte.fr/ and http://www.inria.fr/

Member of HTML and WebApps Working Group of W3C
http://w3.org/

--
github.com/KingCrunch