Remote gzopen()

[slippery]

I have a problem (obvious really as i am posting this)

I need to open a remote .gz compressed file without having to download it. It is a relatively large databse dump file (over 3 mb) which is updated on an hourly basis. Every solution I have seen so far is impractical as it requires the file to be downloaded (even if it is into a temp file which then gets deleted).

I have altered the include_path to point towards the remote file without success however I am not entirely confident that I have used the correct syntax according to the documentation for the gzopen() function.

If anyone can figure out the correct syntax or suggest another method to access the file without having to download it I would be forever in their debt ('forever' being until the morning after)

[brandonschnell]

at some point in the process you'll have to download the file. either you can download the file yourself and run gunzip locally, or you can use the php functions such as gzopen() to open the file and let php download the file. typically you'll be best off if you download the file and uncompress it locally as this will cut down on the processor overhead for the entire process.

3 megs is an extremely small database, but if its still too large see if the remote host can offer a smaller file with just the data that you need.

[slippery]

Thanks for your help.

I was hoping to avoid downloading the entire file which contains 140,000 + individual records. At most I will only require 25 records at any one time.

I think you are right that it would be best to download the file myself. Thanks again for your help.