how to copy() an image from a remote server to mine

marcnyc

Hi, I have a form where a user submits the url of a picture from a remote server. I'd like to copy that picture onto my server and I am trying to use copy(); but it won't work, it keeps telling me that it can't open the file for reading and I have the wrong argument... any ideas?

matt_4013

Hi, copy() will only work on your local server, it wont copy remote files. Probably the easiest way to do it would be to use the fopen() function, with fread, then write it to a local file, like so:

$remote_file = "http://www.azmoo.net/image.png";
	$local_file = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."images/".basename($remote_file);

$fp = fopen($remote_file, "r");

$contents = fread($fp, filesize($remote_file));

fclose($fp);

$fp = fopen($local_file, "w+");

fwrite($fp, $contents);

fclose($fp);

marcnyc

Thanks, I'll try that!

marcnyc

Ok I tried it and I keep getting this error:

Warning: stat failed for http://images.globalknowledge.com/wwwimages/freexbox1.jpg (errno=2 - No such file or directory) in D:\WWW\chaindlk.com\httpdocs\interviews\admin\insert_pictures_to.php on line 187

Line 187 is this one:
$contents = fread($fp, filesize($remote_file));

The script creates the image but it's size 0 (the contents aren't transfered). Any idea where I am doing it wrong?

matt_4013

Damn, looks like filesize() isn't going to work on a remote file.

let's change it so that it loops through it, like so:

while(!feof($remote_file)) {

$contents .= fgets($fp, 4096);

}

That should loop around, picking up 4KB at a time, until it reaches the end of file.

marcnyc

Is there any faster or non-looping way for this? I am just worried that with 3 images of 1Mb each it'll take forever, or will it be fast?

matt_4013

The processing itself you wont get much faster, even if there was an inbuilt function to do this it would be a bit slow. You may have troubles with the speed between the servers, because you're going to have to transfer all of this data twice. Once to your server, then from your server to the client. Ick. Could get messy.

marcnyc

So any better solution? One one-transfer solution?

matt_4013

Not really, I think this is about the best solution you're going to get. As long as your server has some decent bandwidth you should be alright 😉

Weedpacket

The loop wouldn't be the slow part. The slow part would be actually transferring the files - and that will be the same regardless (though fiddling with the size of the buffer might make a difference - say up to about 16384 (16k😎 - experiment. Not too big or your own machine will bog down.)

If there is a problem with the script timing out, judicious use of set_time_limit() can help.

One improvement would be to use fread() instead of fgets(); the latter returns a chunk whenever it hits a newline as well as when it fills the buffer.

marcnyc

Ok so I embraced matt_4013's while loop and Weedpacket's suggested improvement of fread() instead of fgets() and combined it into this:

$url_logo = 'http://localhost/interviews/images/PulcherFemina/PulcherFemina_thumb.jpg';
$url_logo_local = '_logo.jpg';
$fp = fopen($url_logo, "r");
while(!feof($url_logo)) {
 $contents .= fread($fp, 4096);
}
fclose($fp);
$fp = fopen($url_logo_local, "w+");
fwrite($fp, $contents);
fclose($fp);

But this created an endless error page of invalid argument warnings... after looking at the manual's page for feof(); I thought of replacing $url_logo with $fp which makes the above:

$url_logo = 'http://localhost/interviews/images/PulcherFemina/PulcherFemina_thumb.jpg';
$url_logo_local = '_logo.jpg';
$fp = fopen($url_logo, "r");
while(!feof($fp)) {
 $contents .= fread($fp, 4096);
}
fclose($fp);
$fp = fopen($url_logo_local, "w+");
fwrite($fp, $contents);
fclose($fp);

This seemed to work but when I tried my script with a big remote picture (230kB - 1024x768 full color jpg) as opposed to a small local picture like in the example above it took forever, and even after setting an execution limit of 120 seconds it would still not be enough for it to complete!

How can I avoid this? Is there any other way I can do this quicker? I don't know how to proceed from here...

I have one little idea which I still have to try but...

marcnyc

I just tried my other two ideas (opening an ftp session via ftp and providing as file to upload a remote url and launching the imagecopyresamplebicubic() function with the remote url as source image argument) but apparently both of them don't like to be fed remote urls, so I am stuck...
But come on, there MUST be a way to quickly transfer a file to one's server!!!
I am sure a lot of people have done that! Can somebody help with some genius ideas?

marcnyc

Anyone? Any ideas?