file_get_contents when url doesn't exist

Question

I'm using file_get_contents() to access a URL.

file_get_contents('http://somenotrealurl.com/notrealpage');

If the URL is not real, it return this error message. How can I get it to error gracefully so that I know that the page doesn't exist and act accordingly without displaying this error message?

file_get_contents('http://somenotrealurl.com/notrealpage') 
[function.file-get-contents]: 
failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found 
in myphppage.php on line 3

for example in zend you can say: if ($request->isSuccessful())

$client = New Zend_Http_Client();
$client->setUri('http://someurl.com/somepage');

$request = $client->request();

if ($request->isSuccessful()) {
 //do stuff with the result
}

Answer 1

You need to check the HTTP response code:

function get_http_response_code($url) {
    $headers = get_headers($url);
    return substr($headers[0], 9, 3);
}
if(get_http_response_code('http://somenotrealurl.com/notrealpage') != "200"){
    echo "error";
}else{
    file_get_contents('http://somenotrealurl.com/notrealpage');
}