Minecraft 1.7 server list pinged (hacked together in 20 minutes)

ping_mc_1_7.php

<?php
    // Info used: http://wiki.vg/Server_List_Ping
    // (Original varint parsing: https://gist.github.com/thinkofname/e975ddee04e9c87faf22)

    // Reads a varint from the socket
    function read_varint($socket) {
        $i = 0; $j = 0;
        while(true) {
            socket_recv($socket, $buf, 1, null);
            $k = ord($buf[0]);

            $i |= ($k & 0x7F) << $j++ * 7;
            if ($j > 5) return -1;

            if (($k & 0x80) != 128) break;
        }

        return $i;
    }

    // Writes a varint to the socket
    function write_varint($socket, $val) {
        while(true) {
            if(($val & 0xFFFFFF80) == 0) {
                socket_send($socket, chr($val), 1, null);
                return;
            }

            socket_send($socket, chr($val & 0xFF | 0x80), 1, null);
            $val >>= 7;
        }
    }

    // Used to ping a 1.7+ minecraft server
    function ping_mcserver($server, $port = 25565){
        // Create socket and connect
        $socket = socket_create(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM, getprotobyname('tcp'));
        socket_connect($socket, $server, $port);

        // Calculate size of packet
        write_varint($socket, 6 + strlen($server));
        {
            // Handshake packet
            socket_send($socket, chr(0), 1, null);
            // Protocol version
            socket_send($socket, chr(4), 1, null);
            // Server address
            write_varint($socket, strlen($server));
            socket_send($socket, $server, strlen($server), null);
            // Server port (big endian)
            socket_send($socket, chr(($port >> 8) & 0xff), 1, null);
            socket_send($socket, chr($port & 0xff), 1, null);
            // Next state is status state
            write_varint($socket, 1);
        }

        // Size of packet
        write_varint($socket, 1);
        {
            // Status request packet
            socket_send($socket, chr(0), 1, null);
        }

        // Read packet size (unsused)
        read_varint($socket);
        // Read opcode, should be 0 for status resposne
        socket_recv($socket, $buf, 1, null);

        // Read JSON string length
        $len = read_varint($socket);
        // Read JSON string
        socket_recv($socket, $buf, $len, null);

        // Decode JSON string
        return json_decode($buf, true);
    }

    // Dumps json string:
    // print_r(ping_mcserver("server.com"));

    // Example usage
    $info = ping_mcserver("server.com");
    print('<img src="' . $info['favicon'] . '"/><br />');
    print('<b>Title: </b>' . $info['description']['text'] . '<br />');
    print('<b>Players: </b>' . $info['players']['online'] . '/' . $info['players']['max'] . '<br />');
    print('<b>Version: </b>' . $info['version']['name'] . '<br />');
?>