Sending file to person who has visited site

itguysam

Im building a scheduling client/server setup and ive run into a bit of a problem with the final phase of the server side scripts. Ive built up these files I want to send to people who sign up and I was hoping someone can tell me the best way I can send them these files when they become ready, i.e. the user is probably not on my site.

What I really need to know is what info to collect from the user, Just the IP address or do I need more.

And how to set up the headers and stuff to send the file to the user. Also I imagine that people behind routers will cause me problems, any advice to alleviate those problems? Thanks guys.

Here is the code I already have, sends the file fine, I assume it is putting in all sorts of other info by default.

$payload=CreateNewAnnouncement($show);
$message= header("Content-type: application/ptc");
$message.= header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=thingy.ptc");
$message.= $payload;
echo $message;$payload=CreateNewAnnouncement($show);

ednark

have you read up on the [man]mail/man function

itguysam

Yeah, but I really need something that sends it directly to them, the client software is associated with the filetype so I want it to be sent directly to the program. Maybe im being to optomistic, I may need to use sockets or ports or something alittle more exotic to handle this.

ednark

i don't know a way to force a file download onto a remote computer...

thats called hacking

if there is a program on their computer listening for a file download... say an instant messenging client or something... then you might be able to request a file download... but i don't know how to speak AOL

if there is another program they are all running.. then you need to know the spefic port its running on... and what you need to say to it to get it to accept your transfer... it may be as simple as socketing to that port... and reading the file to the socket

i think an email is the way to go unless they are all running a specific program that is looking for you to ask it to start a download

itguysam

I was hoping you werent going to say that....
Ow well, time to learn how to do sockets or something. Damn. Guess its time to learn python and reverse engineer/mod bittorrent to see how I can get something listening to a port.
Thanks for your help.
Sam

ednark

the php socket functions are very thinny wrapped c functions... as are pythons socket functions... if you have C socket experience you should be golden... and if you have python socket code to work off... im not aware of any huge inconsistancies between those and php's. so the conversion should be more tedious than it is difficult