Download Tracking

Cogen

I have a .zip file on my website that I allow visitors to download from my site. I have a link to the file, so all they have to do is click on the link and their browser takes care of the downloading part.
What I was wondering is how to track how many times the file has been downloaded. I'm sure I could increment a field in a table every time the link was clicked, but I'd rather not do it that way. The reason is because once the link is clicked, the table field would get incremented, however once the "Save As" box came up on the users screen they might decide to cancel. I would like a way to increment the table AFTER they download the file. Any help would be appreciated. 🙂

bbaassiri

i don't think you can access or track if the user clicks save or cancel since this is done on the browsers end and not the server

the only thing i can think of right now is that you could use a script that would read the file and once its being downloaded (ie the server reading its contents) you increment the counter

$fileName = "$filesrc";
$filesize = filesize($fileName);
if($filesize) {
    //tailor this to your needs               

    Header("Content-Type: application/pdf");
    Header("Content-Length: ".$filesize);
    Header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$fileName);
    @readfile($fileName);
    //increment your counter after here
}

maybe this will help

Cogen

Thank you for the reply bbaassiri, however I don't really understand. Where would that code go? Is that code meant for a blank page that automatically starts the upload process?

Sorry, I'd try testing and see what happens, but I'm not at home right now, therefore I'm not able to play around with the code.

I looked up readfile(), but I don't know what output buffer it's talking about. Do I need to set one up?

bbaassiri

what i would do is change the link to point to a php file to handle the downloading of the zip file or any other zip file

for example

you have the link

<a href='download.php?do=get_foo_zip'>DOWNLOAD</a>

in the file download.php

if ( $HTTP_GET_VARS['do'] == 'get_foo_zip' )
{
   $fileName = "something.zip";
   $filesize = filesize($fileName);
   if($filesize) {
       //tailor this to your needs               

       //what this is doing is telling the browser what app to use
       Header("Content-Type: application/zip");
       //telling the browser how much data to expect
       Header("Content-Length: ".$filesize);
       //the filename
       Header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$fileName);
       //outputs to output, but happens to be set to type zip
       @readfile($fileName);
       //increment your counter after here
   }
}
else
{
   print "Sorry, no file to download" );
}
exit;
?>

Cogen

Thanks alot for the help bbaassiri. I understand now, and I actually got it working on my site.
Honestly, I'm still undecided on whether to use that or not, since I've read that there are issues with IE. I don't know any other methods right now, so I'll stick with that for the time being.

Thanks again.