404 Using Php Instead Of Shtml?

[rklau]

Hi -

 

I have a snippet of php code I want to execute in my 404 page. I have created a custom 404 page through cPanel, assigned the filename of 404.php at the bottom, and confirmed that (a) the file is written properly and ( when accessed directly (i.e., www.rklau.com/404.php) it works fine.

 

But when you access a page that doesn't exist, I get this:

 

The requested URL /foo was not found on this server.

 

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

I tried manually updating .htaccess with this:

 

ErrorDocument 404 /home/xxxxx/public_html/404.php

 

But that is what seems to generate the error message above.

 

So - how do I direct 404's to 404.php instead of 404.shtml?

 

--Rick

[borfast]

That's odd... I think it should work.

 

Try using a relative path to the file instead - instead of using

 

ErrorDocument 404 /home/xxxxx/public_html/404.php

 

use just

 

ErrorDocument 404 404.php

[rklau]

Sorry, but that doesn't work either. Now I get this:

 

The requested URL /foo was not found on this server.

 

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

I'm stumped...

[rklau]

Well, fool around enough with something and you can make it work. Turns out the line has to read:

 

ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

 

Go figure.

 

For those who are interested, I implemented this hack in Movable Type:

 

http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2003/12...mtrefsearch.php

 

Which lets me capture incoming referral links to help people find what they want on my blog; now the 404 page includes the same code. (I'm going to have to modify the 404 one a bit to include both blogs hosted at my domain, but you get the idea.)

 

Now, when they get referred to a non-existent page from a search engine, the first thing the 404 page does is execute a query against my blogs - if there are posts that contain the search strings used at the search engine, it will present links to those posts before just presenting the visitor with a standard search interface.

 

--Rick

[borfast]

Pretty cool, Rick!

 

Well done!