Question

why on earth wont this work their is no spaces no outputs but yet i put redirect just in before configuartion .php which just holds my db connections what gives

 <?php 
   require('configuration.php');
   $voucher = $_SESSION['voucher'] ;
   $result = mysql_query("SELECT used FROM codes where code='".$voucher."'");
   $row =mysql_fetch_row($result);
   if ( $row['used']  == "1" ) {
       header('Location: invalid.php');
       exit;
   }
   if ( $row['used']  == "0" ) { 
       header('Location: valid.php');
       exit;
   }
?>

Answer 1

Chances are configuration.php has something being output. (Remember that require/include output anything at that point in time, so any white-space or characters would also be output at that time).

out of curiosity, if you do the following does it work:

<?php
  ob_start();
  require('configuration.php');

  // your code with header(...);

  ob_end_flush();

If it works with the ob_start/ob_end_flush calls in place, configuration.php is outputting something. However, some things to note:

• Never send data coming in from a client (via $_GET/$_POST/$_SESSION) directly to SQL. Even though you may be setting the session data, depending where it comes from (cookie for example) it’s very easy to start poking around your database.
• Location should be a fully-qualified path (http://mydomain.com/myfile.php not just myfile.php)