Stop Forum Spam Checking Function

[jacek]

This is an archive post, any discussion should take place here http://betterphp.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=130

This function will tell you if any of the user information you give it appears in the stopforumspam.com database, could be useful for registration forms, guestbooks etc.

function known_spammer($username = null, $email = null, $ip = null){
	if ($username !== null){
		$query['username'] = $username;
	}
	
	if ($email !== null){
		$query['email'] = $email;
	}
	
	if ($ip !== null){
		$query['ip'] = $ip;
	}
	
	if (empty($query)){
		return false;
	}
	
	$data = file_get_contents('http://www.stopforumspam.com/api?' . http_build_query($query) . '&f=serial');
	$data = unserialize($data);
	
	if ($data['success'] !== 1){
		return false;
	}
	
	unset($data['success']);
	
	foreach ($data as $check){
		if ($check['appears'] == '1'){
			return true;
		}
	}
	
	return false;
}

Each parameter is optional and should be replaced with null if you want to skip it. for example to check if an IP is in the database.

var_dump(known_spammer(null, null, '1.2.3.4'));

Or to check all three things,

var_dump(known_spammer('jacek', 'test1@betterphp.co.uk', '1.2.3.4'));

There is a limit to how many times you can use this form the same IP, that limit is 20,000 so I doubt it will cause many problems