How to get destination for ftp download?

[Anon]

Hi!

I'd like to use PHP's ftp-functions to allow users to download files by clicking on a link in a web page. My newbie question is:

How do I get the destination from the user? I'd like them to be able to browse for the directory, but how do I manage that?

Thanks

[Anon]

Did not quite get the idea. Why should you care where user wants to put your file on his computer? Once you have created a link to your file, user is automatically prompted where he wants to save this file (if no application is associated with this file type on his PC - otherwise file is just opened by application, you know). Just create the link in your page - and you'll see how it works.

[Anon]

OK, let's say I've got a password-protected website.
Authorized users should be able to download files by clicking on links
in one of the pages.Since users have already logged in, I don't want to ask them for username:password again (and I store them, anyway).

However, I don't want to allow anonymous download. I could write the username:password combo into the link:

href="ftp://username:[e-mail]/filename.txt"
but displaying username:password seems unnecessary.
Also, I'd like to force download, rather than show the file in the browser.

That's why I thought I'd submit the page to a download function
and use PHP's built-in ftp-functions:
href='./download.php?file='ftp://bla.bla.bla/filename.txt'
I guess I have to use ftp_get(..) but then I'll need a destination file to use as argument. How do I get that?

Do I make any sense whatsoever?

/Maria

Mvh,
Maria

[Anon]

Now I understand. Anyway: 1. you cannot place anything on users computer with PHP - PHP knows nothing about user's file system; 2. you cannot force downloading file when clicking on link. This question is often here and also I've been trying to solve the problem, but I don't know the solution - neither I've seen solution on this forum.
I think, for logged users href="ftp://username:[e-mail]/filename.txt" is the best way.
That's it, web-applications have their limits...

[khaine]

why not set it so that the link isent displayed for the anon user but appears if you log in?

I.e. using windows auth

if ( isset($REMOTE_USER) )
{
echo "<A href=filename.ext>filename</A>"
}
else
{
echo "filename";
}

As for forcing a download. You could always store the file with an odd extension. Unless this would mess up the file of course. say if you have a text file to download give it the extension of tx instead of txt. the browser wont know what to do and it will download.

[Anon]

Thanks for all responses!
I'm still curious about how to get user input, though.
The script below works for downloading a file from my (here: local) ftp-host to my local hd.
Instead of using the var $local_file, I would like to select destination in a pop-up window.
I think it can be done using header-funktions, but I don't know how.
Does anyone know what I need to add to my script to get the destination from the user?

<?
$ftp_server = "localhost";
$username = "anonymous";
$password = "";
$local_file = "C:\local_dir\local_file.txt";
$remote_file = "remote_file.txt";

$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $username, $password);
if ((!$conn_id) || (!$login_result))
die;
else {
echo "Connected to $ftp_server, for user $username<br>\n";
if (ftp_chdir($conn_id, "remote_dir"))
ftp_get ($conn_id, $local_file, $remote_file, "FTP_BINARY");
}

ftp_quit($conn_id);
?>