Use FURL to Retrieve Website Headers
It's important to know what headers your website and its files are communicating. For example, if your website is providing a 404 status, you're probably streaking toward your computer to fix the problem. Using the FURL library, you may retrieve website headers from the command line.
The Shell Script
furl https://davidwalsh.name
Simple and quick -- just like every shell directive.
The Sample Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:50:50 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.6
X-Pingback: https://davidwalsh.name/xmlrpc.php
Cache-Control: max-age=1, private, must-revalidate
Expires: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:50:51 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Don't have FURL? Install it by scripting this:
sudo port install furl
How is this useful? I would use this to periodically (cron) check my website to make sure it was up. What would you use this for?
![Responsive and Infinitely Scalable JS Animations]()
Back in late 2012 it was not easy to find open source projects using requestAnimationFrame() - this is the hook that allows Javascript code to synchronize with a web browser's native paint loop. Animations using this method can run at 60 fps and deliver fantastic...
![CSS vs. JS Animation: Which is Faster?]()
How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS transitions? And, how is it possible that Adobe and Google consistently release media-rich mobile sites that rival the performance of native apps?
This article serves as a point-by-point...
![MooTools History Plugin]()
One of the reasons I love AJAX technology so much is because it allows us to avoid unnecessary page loads. Why download the header, footer, and other static data multiple times if that specific data never changes? It's a waste of time, processing, and bandwidth. Unfortunately...
![Xbox Live Gamer API]()
My sharpshooter status aside, I've always been surprised upset that Microsoft has never provided an API for the vast amount of information about users, the games they play, and statistics within the games. Namely, I'd like to publicly shame every n00b I've baptized with my...
I’d use it to retrieve the X-Pingback value and if it was included, I’d send a trackback. ;-)
Or, if you don’t fancy installing furl for this, you can do the same with curl (a powerful and flexible utility for doing performing requests) with the -I flag:
eg.
curl -I http://davidwalsh.name
(you probably have curl installed already)
to see the headers and the full response, use the verbose flag
curl -v http://davidwalsh.name
@adamnfish: Thanks for sharing that. On a side note, “adamnfish” sounds like a wacky morning FM radio show.
Not sure where sources are but the Debian package is at http://bertorello.ns0.it/debian/furl/
As already mentioned,
curl -I HOSTNAME
Has the same functionality but without installing something extra.
curl -I is good. This is another suggestion…
lwp-request -ed “http://lindesk.com/”
another trick is:
lynx -head http://davidwalsh.name
lynx is a linux textual browser
Dang! I should have read this sooner. I was itching to jump all over the “curl -I” suggestion. Everyone got here first!
alias furl=’curl -i -X HEAD’