<?php

    @include("header.html");
    @include("middle.html");

        if ($_GET["action"]) {
            $includeFile = $_GET["action"] .".php";
                if (@file_exists($includeFile))
                    @include($includeFile);
                else
                    echo "File does not exist!";
        }
        else {
            @include("content.html");
        }

    @include("footer.html");

?>

I use that to call together files to display one of my sites, it works well and makes updating much easier than editing the static HTML files. Makes it a breeze to 'redesign' the site as I can cut a template up into a header, middle, footer and viola!

Anyhow, my question is this. I apologize, its late and I am by no means a PHP scripter. Where it says:

                    echo "File does not exist!";

How can I get that to display 404.SHTML?

I tried a few different things, buts its 3:30AM my time and I am beat tired. Hoping I can get up in the morning and pick up where I left

TIA

To make 404 response use

PHP Code:

header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found",true); 


for more info check
http://php.net/manual/en/function.header.php

To display the 404 document
you can use php include like

PHP Code:

include '404.shtml'; 


Or if the document you need to display contains server directives you can use SSI

PHP Code:

virtual("/404.shtml"); 


http://php.net/manual/en/function.virtual.php

If you're going to use header, you cannot have any output prior to calling it. So you may want to check if the file exists prior to including 'header.html' and 'middle.html'.

he can if output buffering is enabled.

1. You should validate requested "action" BEFORE starting to include/require any template files so that you could decide whether to send regular content or 404 page before starting any output.

2. It is strongly recommended to check allowed "action" not by existing files, but with a kind of predefined array, since file_exists() not only requires filesystem call and can become inefficient under high load but also it presents serious security hole.

As said above, an array of safe words that can be used to call the include would be best. Otherwise you are laying the foundations of an insecure application (and I dont mean an app that hates the mirror!).

PHP Code:

<?php

 @include("header.html");
    @include("middle.html");

        if ($_GET["action"]) {
            $includeFile = $_GET["action"] .".php";
                if (@file_exists($includeFile))
                    @include($includeFile);
                else
                    @include('error404.html');
        }
        else {
            @include("content.html");
        }

    @include("footer.html");

?>

You could use the above to mimic a 404 responce but control the file included.

Alternativly you could place content.html in the include and have the user redirected to content.html in the event a file dosnt exist but this would be a bad practice without any message explaining why they are seeing a page they didnt expect.

You could use the above to mimic a 404 responce but control the file included.

Alternativly you could place content.html in the include and have the user redirected to content.html in the event a file doesn't exist but this would be a bad practice without any message explaining why they are seeing a page they didnt expect.

But you should put SE into consideration. SE will need either of 404,301 response to know the requested page is not longer available and should get removed from their index. Showing error404.html without indicating that the page is removed will make search engine index many copies of error404.html pages. which could harm your website or even worse your website may get penalized for having high rate of repeated contents.