How to display Apache's default 404 page in PHP

Question

I have a webapp that needs to process the URI to find if a page exists in a database. I have no problem directing the URI to the app with .htaccess:

Options +Fo         


        

Answer 1

I don't think you can "hand it back" to Apache, but you can send the appropriate HTTP header and then explicitly include your 404 file like this:

if (! $exists) {
    header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
    include_once("404.php");
    exit;
}

Update

PHP 5.4 introduced the http_response_code function which makes this a little easier to remember.

if (! $exists) {
    http_response_code(404);
    include_once("404.php");
    exit;
}