how can i report 404 errors and include the requested url that was not found?

Question

I have made this with my pages that are database generated with $_GET, but im starting to notice 404s from pages that are not database generated.

for example maybe incorrect directory name:

site.com/mispelleddir/page-name

or somehow the dir got printed twice:

site.com/dir/dir/page-name

I want to know that URL that was tried. Is there a way i can fetch the requested URL that gave a 404 into a php variable or something so i can include that in my error report? and or the page that it was linked to. I know i can see that sort of thing on google webmaster tools, but it takes them 2 days before they can report it to me. And usually in that time i could have fixed the problem already.

right now i have an email sent to me reporting it from the 404 page:

function report404($body)
{
    $to = "my email @gmail.com";    
    $subject = "website 404 error report";  
     if (!mail($to, $subject, $body)) 
    echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");  
}

used like this on the 404 page:

if($_GET['page']) report404("The sentence [$page] was sent to eng.php or jap.php and could not generate a translation page.");
else report404("404 error occured but not from eng.php or jap.php");

when my database driven pages dont find the content in the db they redirect to 404 page setting the ?page="attempted page" but this wont work if the 404 error was trigger by those above examples.

You could likely use an sql database, and copy the urls into that. Or you could use a mail program, and email the bad urls to yourself. — James Gould
how do i retrieve the URL to send it in an email or to the db, thats what my question is — user1397417
Check out this question: stackoverflow.com/questions/189113/… — James Gould
and as for emailing it or putting it in the database, I use pear mail for email, and mysql for the database. I can't explain how those work to you in any short amount of time, but that gives you some stuff to google and research. — James Gould
if i use $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"] on the 404 page, this will just return the URL of my 404 page, which is site.com/404.php so how can i use it to do what i want? — user1397417

James Gould James Gould · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-16T02:42:00

$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], as noted on (this question)[How do I get current page full URL in PHP on a Windows/IIS server, should work to get you the url.

You can then store that using pear email or sql.

how can i report 404 errors and include the requested url that was not found?

1 Answers