Deleting a file after download

[DJM]

Can anyone suggest a way of automatically deleting (unlinking) a file after a user has downloaded it from the server.

I can't think of any way of detecting whether or not the download has taken place, except the clicking of a link to initiate the download dialogue. The danger there, is that the file could be deleted before the user has a chance to download it!

Thanks

[bastien]

kind of component that the user would download in java or some other language...

[DJM]

Thanks.

Maybe I could use the sleep() function to delay execution of the delete procedure for so many minutes, according to the size of the file, and warn the user that the file will be unavailable for download after that time.

[jnuneznyc]

Well this is a bit out of the newbie range but the way to do this is to create a php page that will read in the file and pass it to the user. The last line of your script should delete the file but even if the user starts the download, he might stop it and the file will never get deleted. One way to fix that might be to check to see if the client connection is still active.

OK here we go...

<?
function deleteFile()
{
    //enter your delete file code here, you can check to see if the connection was completed or aborted.
}

//Set the function to run after the every has been sent.
register_shutdown_function( deleteFile() )

//Read the file - There are different ways to do this 
// and depends on the type of file. 
// Fill out the following variables:
//  $mimetype
//  $filename
//  $filesize
//  $filecontent

//Set the header to the mimetype/name/size of the file you are sending to the user.
header("Content-type: $mimetype");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename");
header("Content-Length: $filesize");

//Send the file
echo($filecontent);
?>

[DJM]

Thanks - I'll give it a try.