Maybe this is the way it's supposed to work, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

When processing a HEAD request, mod_php executes the script as if it were a normal GET request. This is unexpected (at least to me) and can lead to unexpected results, such as duplicate execution when dealing with browsers that use a HEAD request prior to a GET request.

For example, test script test.php:
<?php
$fp = fopen("test.out", "a");
fputs($fp, "I'm hit!");
fclose($fp);
?>

and assuming test.out exists and is world-writable.

HEAD /test.php HTTP/1.0

causes the file test.out to be appended to.

This is not what I would expect, but maybe it's unavoidable. A workaround is to look at $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] and do nothing if it's a HEAD request.


 './configure' '--with-apxs=/usr/local/sbin/apxs' '--with-config-file-path=/usr/local/etc' '--enable-versioning' '--with-system-regex' '--disable-debug' '--enable-track-vars' '--without-gd' '--without-mysql' '--with-zlib' '--with-mcrypt=/usr/local' '--with-mysql=/usr/local' '--prefix=/usr/local' 'i386--freebsd4.5'