Question

At the moment we are using a .htaccess rule for user avatars, if they have not uploaded an avatar then a 404 occurs and shows a default avatar image.

However this happens thousands of times a day and the error_log is pretty much constantly being written to.

The .htaccess rule is in the /avatar/ directory which only consists of the image files.

PHP image code

<img src="/avatar/<?=$userId?>.png" />

.htaccess code used in the images directory

ErrorDocument 404 /unknown.gif

Is there any other fast way I could do this to stop the 404 error occuring or mabye even being logged?

Would a php.ini file in the /avatar/ directory that turned off error reporting work?

Answer 1

Simple. Only display the image, if the image exists.

<?php

if(file_exists("/avatar/" . $userId . ".png")) {
    print('<img src="/avatar/' . $userId . '.png" />');
}
else {
    print('<img src="/avatar/unknown.gif" />');
}

?>