Custom Status Messages

[chibineku]

I've moved on from mod_rewrite to redirects and custom error messages as a way of mediating poor search engine rankings, and I have a couple of questions that my book doesn't answer very well:1) I can create custom 500 errors - i.e. server error. If my server is down, how does this message get to the person making the request? Surely if the 500 error can get to them, my content can, too? 2) Can I add any sort of content to custom 500 pages that I want, i.e. can they be full (D/X)HTML pages?

[justsomeguy]

If the server is down they don't get a response at all, they'll get a message that they can't reach the server or something like that. You can add any content to an error page.

[chibineku]

So is there any point in a custom 500 error then? It seems odd to put it in a book if it makes no difference.

[justsomeguy]

A 500 means the server had an error on it, not that the server is unreachable. If the server is unreachable you're not going to get any response code at all. The server is what sends the response codes, so obviously the server has to be reachable and online if it's going to send any response at all.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codesHere's a 500 error:

<?phpif ($wtf){else?>

Edited September 9, 2009 by justsomeguy