Delete file after sending to remote browser

slopoke

Hi!

We are providing a service that ships .pdf files to remote browsers.

Upon request, we build the pdf file in a temporary area available in the virtual directory for our IIS service.

The problem I'm having is deleting the file after sending it. We don't want to have to operate another 'cleanup service'. We'd like to just delete the file 'inline'.

If I use a browser on the same machine, the file transfers and deletes fine. If we access the file remotely, when we delete the file after streaming, the file does not arrive at the remote browser. I'm thinking that it is some kind of timing issue where there is time to transfer the file to the browser before the delete, where on the remote, the file is not fully transferred before the delete occurs.

Here is how I'm doing this:

header("Location: " .$FilePathVirtual);
unlink($FilePath);

Both vars are pointing to the same file. One is just using the virtual pathing and the other has the 'full' path.

How can I put a check to see if the file is transferred before the unlink? Or is there an even better way to do this?

Thanks,
Slopoke

AstroTeg

Hmm... This line, as you know, works:

header("Location: " .$FilePathVirtual);

But I think its causing you all your headaches. Notice you have the unlink() right after it. You're telling the browser to redirect to the file to download, but before it gets there, the file will have been deleted.

I'd recommend setting up some code to read the contents of the file and pass them back to the browser. The advantage is you'll know when all the bits have been read and then you can delete the file. Check out [man]readfile[/man] as one of the possible functions you may find handy for doing this.

halojoy

// this is used to continue on another html or php page
// redirects to next page
header('location:nextpage.php');

// this will never be executed
unlink(whatever);

I am swedish,
but compare
'Where are you heading?'
In swedish:
'Vart ska du?'
~Where shall you?

slopoke

Thank you very much for your suggestions.

I used readfile and it worked beautifully. However, readfile has a filesize limit of 2M and some of our files are larger than that.

But I agree that I'm deleting the file right after initiating the file download. I was hoping that there was some way to test whether the download process was complete before I called the unlink.

halojoy,

The subsequent code does execute in this case since the system behavior is totally different if I comment out the unlink without changing anything else. But, I understand what you're saying.

We also tried a fopen/fread kind of approach but, this causes the browser to throw a 'are you sure you want to open this file on your machine?' window. We don't want that. We are working with pdf files and without the unlink, they just open in Adobe without any extra bs. Very nice. But then, the files pile up on the host...

All I wanna do is have a pdf open on the remote browser and then delete the file from the server inline :bemused:

AstroTeg

fread() will work around the 2mb file size limit. I suggest taking another crack at it. The new problem you described is related to the headers you're sending or not sending. Make sure you're sending the right content type and such to the browser. That may help.

halojoy

Originally posted by slopoke
halojoy,

The subsequent code does execute in this case since the system behavior is totally different if I comment out the unlink without changing anything else. But, I understand what you're saying.

always something new to learn.
I guess this will NOT work with my Apache:

header( 'location:$filenameVirtual' );
unlink( $filename );