Question

I’m using simplexml_load_file to pull album information from the LastFM API and having no problems when the requested album matches.

However, when the album is not found, LastFM returns an error, which causes the code below to output a “failed to open stream” error.

I can see that LastFM is giving me exactly what I need, but am unsure how to proceed. What is the proper way to update the code so that this error/error code is correctly handled?

Code:

$feed = simplexml_load_file("http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=album.getinfo&api_key=".$apikey."&artist=".$artist."&album=".$album."&autocorrect=".$autocorrect);

$albums = $feed->album;
foreach($albums as $album) {

    $name = $album->name;
    $img = $album->children();
    $img_big = $img->image[4];
    $img_small = $img->image[2];
    $releasedate = $album->releasedate;
    $newdate = date("F j, Y", strtotime($releasedate));

    if ($img == "") {
            $img = $emptyart; }
}
?>

Answer 1

Working along the lines of evaluating the state of the URL prior to passing it to simplexml_load_file, I tried get_headers, and that, coupled with an if/else statement, seems to have gotten things working.

$url = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=album.getinfo&api_key=".$apikey."&artist=".$artist."&album=".$album."&autocorrect=".$autocorrect;

$headers = get_headers($url, 1);

if ($headers[0] == 'HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request') {
    $img_big = $emptyart;
    $img_small = $emptyart;
    }

else {
    $feed = simplexml_load_file($url);

    $albums = $feed->album;
    foreach($albums as $album) {

        $name = $album->name;
        $img = $album->children();
        $img_big = $img->image[4];
        $img_small = $img->image[2];
        $releasedate = $album->releasedate;
        $newdate = date("F j, Y", strtotime($releasedate));

        if ($img == "") {
            $img_big = $emptyart;
            $img_small = $emptyart;
            }
    }
}