PHP: Avoiding “Headers already sent by…” errors

Just a quick post inspired by Techgirl, here’s how to avoid the annoying PHP errors “Headers already sent by…” when working with multiple files.

Basically, a PHP script usually looks like:

<?php
include "my.lib.php";
include "otherstuff.php";
....
?>


however, if my.lib.php (for example) looks like:

<?php
....
...
?>


(do you see the hidden “new line at the end”), you’ll get the “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at my.lib.php:6) in index.php on line 2? error.

So how do you simpley avoid this? Easy! Omit the closing ?> from the library/include files. My.lib.php now looks like:

<?php
....
...


and the problem is solved.

Simple, quick solution which is worth remembering!