I'm checking to see if a site exists (I'm using LWP::UserAgent), is up, etc. before directing a user to a site. Unfortunately, if the destination site itself redirects users with a query (i.e., uses ? in the URL), my program bombs.

Does anyone have any suggestions how to successfully follow redirects? 

$ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
$request = new HTTP::Request('HEAD', "$URLVAL{URL}");
($response) = $ua->request($request);
if ($response->is_success) {
  print "Location:$URLVAL{URL}\n\n"; # quits if destination site redir
+ects using '?' [or encoded equivalent] in its redirection script
}
else {
  # send user to another cgi that displays some 'failed URL' text.
}

[download]

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

In reply to How do I programatically follow redirects? by bwarn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.