php - How to get the real URL after file_get_contents if redirection happens?

Question

I'm using file_get_contents() to grab content from a site, and amazingly it works even if the URL I pass as argument redirects to another URL.

The problem is I need to know the new URL, is there a way to do that?

Answer 1

If you need to use file_get_contents() instead of curl, don't follow redirects automatically:

$context = stream_context_create(
    array(
        'http' => array(
            'follow_location' => false
        )
    )
);

$html = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/', false, $context);

var_dump($http_response_header);

Answer inspired by: How do I ignore a moved-header with file_get_contents in PHP?