How can one check to see if a remote file exists using PHP?

Question

The best I could find, an if fclose fopen type thing, makes the page load really slowly.

Basically what I\'m trying to do is

Answer 1

There's an even more sophisticated alternative. You can do the checking all client-side using a JQuery trick.

$('a[href^="http://"]').filter(function(){
     return this.hostname && this.hostname !== location.hostname;
}).each(function() {
    var link = jQuery(this);
    var faviconURL =
      link.attr('href').replace(/^(http:\/\/[^\/]+).*$/, '$1')+'/favicon.ico';
    var faviconIMG = jQuery('')['appendTo'](link);
    var extImg = new Image();
    extImg.src = faviconURL;
    if (extImg.complete)
      faviconIMG.attr('src', faviconURL);
    else
      extImg.onload = function() { faviconIMG.attr('src', faviconURL); };
});

From http://snipplr.com/view/18782/add-a-favicon-near-external-links-with-jquery/ (the original blog is presently down)