updating a site

thekidscareya

let's say there are 2 sites called site1.com and site2.com

is it possible for site1.com to display the main page on site2.com w/o using rss or xml to do so? can this be done using php?

i was thinking of having http://www.site2.com/index.html copied to http://www.site1.com/site2.html each time the user visits http://www.site1.com. Then, have site1.com/index.php remove all the unecessary stuff from site2.html and show it to the user...

but how would i do all of this? i am a intermediate php programmer...i can do the normal stuff...but want to know how to do something like this

next questino:

function get_size($file)
{
// What do I put here?  

// normally it would be filesize($file)
// but this is a remote file

}


$file = "http://www.anothersite.com/files.zip";
get_size($file);

how do i do that?

thanks for all your help

Installer

Regarding filesize():

Tip: As of PHP 5.0.0 this function can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to Appendix L for a listing of which wrappers support stat() family of functionality.

thekidscareya

I'm going to try using this:

function file_size($file) {
  $size = filesize($file);
  if ( $size == 0)
   $size = exec("ls -l $file | awk '{print $5}'");
  echo "$size";
} 

$file = "http://www.anothersite.com/files.zip";
file_size($file);

EDIT: Just realized it won't work since it calls filesize()

The error is: filesize(): Stat failed for http://www.anothersite.com/files.zip (errno=2 - No such file or directory) (Line: 30 of /ssi/clips.php)

Does any one have an idea for my other question?

bpat1434

Have you thought of using fsockopen() and copying the contents of the file (or the source code) and saving it to your own temp file?

~Brett

thekidscareya

I don't really want to do that...I'm afraid it will eat my bandwidth and use my space (I dont have a lot of web space).

Installer

So the question is how to copy a file from one site to another without using bandwidth?

You could try HCTP (Hard Copy Transfer Protocol).

thekidscareya

i've never heard of that...can you elaborate a bit more?

Installer

What I meant was...

You say you want to copy a file from site2 to site1, process the file, and display the results. I can see no way to do that without tranferring (copying) the file from one site to the other. And in doing that, you will be using bandwidth at least equal to the size of the file being copied.

In short, you can't copy a file without doing a transfer.

thekidscareya

Originally posted by bpat1434
Have you thought of using fsockopen() and copying the contents of the file (or the source code) and saving it to your own temp file?

~Brett

Originally posted by thekidscareya
I don't really want to do that...I'm afraid it will eat my bandwidth and use my space (I dont have a lot of web space).

I thought that was in reference to determining the filesize. (I thought he wanted me to copy the file temporarily to my host, find the size, and delete it.)

My mistake about that....

So fsockopen() will get the file to site1.com/site2.html, but how to I remove all the unecessary headers (css, js tags, etc.) and footers so I just get the news on the main part of site2.com?

Installer

You'll probably need to use string functions and/or regular expression functions to parse out the information you're after. This can get pretty complicated, and often involves one-time coding specific to the files in question.

thekidscareya

ok...i gotcha...the first part of my question is resolved...now to the 2nd part....

Installer

If you're able to open the file remotely with "fsockopen()" to transfer it, you should also be able to use "filesize()" with it.

thekidscareya

let's say the file is 100 mb...if i use those two functions...will it use 100 mbs of bw ea time some1 tries to see the size of that file?

bpat1434

Yes, but WHY would you want to copy a file that 100 MB to your server each time someone accesses your site? Think about it.

Your site takes on about 10.24 visitors a month. That's 1GB of file transfer bandwith. WHY would you want to copy that file over and over? Why not copy it once per day, or week, or month?

~Brett

thekidscareya

thats what im saying...won't fsockopen() use all my bandwidth?

bpat1434

Yes, I know that's what you're saying, but WHY are you actively referencing an external script? What is the point? It's the same idea of hot-linking off of images. I'm sure people are linking to some images off of just about every website (known as hot-linking). That steals bandwith (not much though).

You don't really have an alternative. You can't copy the file without first reading it (causing the use of bandwith). You will have to use an XML RSS feed, or just do without.

~Brett

thekidscareya

ill prolly just enter the filesize in the db and query it from there...be much more work...but w/e has to be done must be done

im not gonna mark the thread resolved yet...since im hoping for another alternative