Dynamic 410 Gone away file?

[learning_brain]

I have now over 350,000 images in my search engine index.

Additiionally, there is a cron job that checks them every so often to ensure they are still there.

If the image doesn't exist anymore, the database entry is deleted.

The problem is the dynamically created page still theretically exists - without the correct content. I have coded in a php script hat asks if the image id (view_image.php?imageid=4563487563475whever) requested from the url exists and if not returns a message saying the resource is no longer available.

The search engines still index it as it does not return a 404 or 410 error.

Is there a way to send a header or something that returns a 410 error (gone away)??

I know this is probably a tricky one but it could be very useful to a lot of people.

Thanks

Rich

[misson]

Use whatever your language of choice has to set HTTP response headers to set the status. For example, in PHP:

header('HTTP/1.0 410 Gone'); 

[learning_brain]

That was simple - thanks