check if image exists php

Question

I am in the middle of coding up a property portal. I am stuck on checking images. I know how to check if an image url is set. But the problem is detecting if there is actually a valid image at the url.

example : http://property.images.themovechannel.com/cache/7217/6094437/img_main.jpg

This image url exists but the image is has now been removed so it just displays blank in my propety search page. Is there a way of checking there is an image there at the url and then displaying a placeholder if it doesnt exist.

something like

$imageURL = "http://property.images.themovechannel.com/cache/7217/6094437/img_main.jpg";

if (exists($imageURL)) { display image } 
else { display placeholder }

But all this does is check the url exists, which it does there is just no image there

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

function exists($uri)
{
    $ch = curl_init($uri);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
    curl_exec($ch);
    $code = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    curl_close($ch);

    return $code == 200;
}

Answer 2

Use getimagesize() to ensure that the URL points to a valid image.

if (getimagesize($imageURL) !== false) {
    // display image
}