A simple HTTP client for PHP that uses curl:

   1  class HTTP {
   2      static function get($url, $headers=null) {
   3          $ch = curl_init();
   4          curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
   5          curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
   6          curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
   7  
   8          if($headers) {
   9              curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
  10          }
  11  
  12          // Execute request
  13          $response = curl_exec($ch);
  14  
  15          // Split headers and body
  16          list($header_text, $body) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $response, 2);
  17          $header_lines = explode("\r\n", $header_text);
  18  
  19          // Extract HTTP status
  20          $header_line = array_shift($header_lines);
  21          if (preg_match('@^HTTP/[0-9]\.[0-9] ([0-9]{3})@', $header_line, $matches)) {
  22              $status = $matches[1];
  23          }
  24  
  25          // Extract HTTP headers
  26          $headers = array();
  27          foreach ($header_lines as $header_line) {
  28              list($header, $value) = explode(': ', $header_line, 2);
  29              $headers[$header] = $value;
  30          }
  31  
  32          $info = curl_getinfo($ch); 
  33  
  34          curl_close($ch);    
  35  
  36          $status = $info['http_code'];
  37  
  38          return new Response($status, $body, $headers, $info);
  39      }
  40  }

Even supports reading response headers.

   1  class Response  {
   2      public function Response($code, $body, $headers, $info=null) {
   3          $this->code = $code;
   4          $this->body = $body;
   5          $this->headers = $headers;
   6          $this->info = $info;
   7      }
   8  }

   1  $url = 'http://www';
   2  
   3  $proxy = 'tcp://xxx:8080';
   4  
   5  $context = array(
   6  	'http' => array(
   7  		'proxy' => $proxy,
   8  		'request_fulluri' => True,
   9  		),
  10  	);
  11  	
  12  $context = stream_context_create($context);
  13  
  14  $body = file_get_contents($url, False, $context);

The code was found here. Note that it doesn’t seem to work with HTTPS.

   1  $r = date_parse("8:16:12 01.02.2008");
   2  $d = mktime($r['hour'], $r['minute'], $r['second'], $r['month'], $r['day'], $r['year']);
   3  echo date("H:i:s d.m.Y", $d); 

Prints out the following:

   1  8:16:12 01.02.2008

PHP cookie management is a good example of how incredibly badly designed PHP is:

Set a cookie that expires when browser is closed

Note that you most probably want to set the path, which we do here:

   1  $value = 0;
   2  $expires = 0;
   3  setcookie('cookie_name', $value, $expires, '/');

Remove cookie

   1  setcookie ('cookie_name', FALSE, time()-10000);

Get cookie value

   1  $_COOKIE['cookie_name']

Xdebug is a good tool for finding the root cause of memory allocation problems such as the one shown here:

   1  Fatal error: Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted (tried to allocate X bytes)

First install Xdebug by following the Xdebug installation instructions.

Next surround the code you suspect is causing the problem with the following function calls:

   1  xdebug_start_trace('/tmp/mytrace');
   2  ...
   3  Bad bad PHP code
   4  ...
   5  xdebug_stop_trace();

Read this blog entry by splitbrain.org for more details