handling multiple file downloads

murali

In my appln, the user can choose the no of files he/she wants to download. Now I want all the downloads to be triggered when the user presses the download button.. I use the following code

<?php
include("miscfunctions.php");
$miscfunc= new miscfunctions();

$downloadfiles=explode(",",$_POST["downloadfile"]);
for($i=0;$i<count($downloadfiles);$i++)
{

if($downloadfiles[$i]=="file1")
{

   $filename="file1.zip";
}
else if ($downloadfiles[$i]=="file2")
{
    $filename="file2.zip";
}


 if ($downloadfiles[$i]!='')
 {

	$miscfunc->downloadfiles($filename);

 }
 }
 ?>

in the class I have

class miscfunctions
{
	function downloadfiles($filename)
	{
		$filepath="http://localhost/downloads/$filename";
		header("Content-Type: application/zip");
		header("content-disposition: filename=".basename($filepath));
		readfile("http://localhost/downloads/".basename($filepath));
	}
}

I can trigger one file download.. the work around is using javascript you can open multiple windows for each file selected and accomplish multiple file download..

is there any way in php to make multiple downloads possible ????

weekender

maybe you can do it using js with only 1 window...

open the first file download window
in the onload event, use window.location to start the second download
in the onload event, use window.location to start the third download

i think this will present the user with 3 download boxes, from one window

or you could look into zipping all the files into 1 zip, and downloading that instead

murali

I know its possible with js. but if suppose the user has activated pop-up blockers, then my download will not take place at all!!!!!!!,.. So I need to find a solution where I should not use javascript to accomplish this task.

piersk

what weekender suggested won't matter if they have pop-ups blocked, since it doesn't use window.open. However, if they have javascript turned off, then his suggestion won't work.

mazsolt

about weekender's suggestion:

if you send the content of the file with readfile(), setting first the content dispozition header, it's not possible for the browser to analyse any of the following <body> messages. at least it won't display anything, if you fixe some data in the body (including the events).
so the browser cannot interpret the <onload> event.

<?
header("Content-Type: application/zip");
if (!isset($_GET["dl"])){
header("content-disposition: attachment; filename=file1.zip");
readfile("file1.zip");
echo "<body onload=\"location.href='http://www.server.com/script.php?dl=2';\">";
}
else{
header("content-disposition: attachment;filename=file2.zip");
readfile("f2.zip");
}
?>
...
it won't send a new request to the server with ?dl=2