File downloads

[berbbrown]

When downloading files via PHP at what point would I update a database if I wanted to record the download.

I have some code which updates a database after the header information, but the database table is not updated.

$TodayDate = date("Y-m-d");
$SQLString = "INSERT INTO tblfileactivity (userid, logdate, fileid) VALUES ($UserID, '$TodayDate', $TID)";
$Result = mysql_query($SQLString);
$UseFilename = "../uploads/$TheFilename";
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Disposition: $Attachment filename=\"$TheFilename\"");
header("Content-Length: $TheFileSize");
exit;

Any ideas?

[jcornett]

That code should be fine... I built a shopping cart to download files a while back and have included some code I used to send the file out. I update a database field to limit the number of times the file is able to be downloaded. The example here uses a PDF file, but your Header calls look fine:

<?php
function push_file($file) {
header("Content-Type: application/pdf");
if (strstr($HTTP_USER_AGENT,"MSIE")) $attachment="";
else $attachment=" attachment;";
header("Content-Disposition:$attachment filename=\"$file\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
$fn=fopen("/home/chauvinistguide/files/$file" , "r");
fpassthru($fn);
}

/ Include the Database Connection and Functions /
Include('connect.php');
connect();

/ Update the number of attempts in the database /
$sql = "UPDATE purchases_emails set attempts = '$num_attempts' where sesid='$sesid' and email='$email' AND pid='$pid'";
$result = @($sql);

/ Now push the file /
$result = @("SELECT filename from products where pid = '$pid'");
$file = @mysql_result($result, 0);
push_file($file);

?>

John Cornett

[Anon]

What does the push_file function do?

What happens if the user cancels the download? Can you detect that?

[jcornett]

It simply feeds the file to the user so they can download it. You just need to pass it the filename to download. Simply put, it does the same thing that your code does in the section with Header calls, but puts it into a function. 🙂

John Cornett