Hi,

if we query a whois server to check for a domain name, is there a sure way to get only the domain availability status? some server says 'not found', other say 'no info', etc., which makes me ends up on creating long line of codes to check for just the domain availability.

here's the code I use (PHP):

$handle = fsockopen ('whois-servers.net', 43);
fputs ($handle, 'computing.net' . "\r\n");
$result = '';
while (!feof ($handle)){ $result .= fgets ($handle, 128); }
fclose ($handle);

// [work with $result here]

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And then I get another idea, I just count the result line. If it's more than 25 then there're some data written (not just 'no info' notification) which means it's no longer available :D Is this ok?

Or, am I doing it all wrong from the beginning? (is there a 'correct' way to do it other than querying a whois server?)

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