[Resolved] multi download

concept0020

I am trying to allow users to down load more that one file at a time...

I have a page set up with checkboxes and file names... the user selects which flies they want then clicks a download button...

the files are sent to the download script via the array file[]... I have tested this and when I have a loop just printing out the file names all that were checked print out. When I try a loop to download based oh a count() on the file array only the first file downloads... here is my download code

//downloads all files that have been selected
   $i = 0;
   while($i < $num_of_files_to_dl) {
    $filename = $file[$i]; // the name the file will have on client computer
    $file_to_download = '/home/username/www/uploads/'.$user_name.'/'.$file[$i]; // the name the file has on the server (or an FTP or HTTP request)
    $user_agent = strtolower ($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]);
    header ("Content-Type: application/octet-stream"); 

if ((is_integer (strpos($user_agent, "msie"))) && (is_integer (strpos($user_agent, "win")))) {
  header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename"); 
} else {
 // header( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="$filename);
}
header( "Content-Description: File Transfert");
@readfile($file_to_download);
$i++;
exit();
   }

any thoughts how to get it to cycle through and start another download...?

also this seems to work on windows machines but on a mac with ie browser and safari browser it did not... any thoughts

thanks

swr

You have exit() in your while loop. So the while loop will go through once, then exit. It will never go through a second time.

But removing the exit() isn't going to help. The browser is only going to want to download one file. If your script is called something.php, the browser, in a way, thinks it's downloading something.php. Your script is generating content, but the browser doesn't know that; it's just downloading a URL. Since it's only downloading from one URL, it's only expecting to receive one file. It's just the way HTTP was designed.

There's a couple of things you might be able to do...

You might be able to work around the one-file limitation by using frames and javascript. Have javascript in one frame direct the browser to load a file in another frame. Then have that javascript tell it to load the next file, then the next file, etc. I have no idea if this would actually work though.

If I were implementing a multiple-file-download function, I'd put all the files into a .zip file. Then the user can just download a single .zip file, and unpack it on their own machine. That's probably the simplest and most reliable way to do it.