Return the forwarded URL using cURL - useful for link shorteners etc

getRedirectedUrl.php

<?php
function returnRedirectedUrl($url)
{
  $ch = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, false);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
  $a = curl_exec($ch);
  if(preg_match('#Location: (.*)#', $a, $r))
  $permalink = trim($r[1]);

  return $permalink;
}