[RESOLVED] opening external files

[foid025]

Hi all. As part of my website, I need to allow users to download a large number of files (images and MS Office documents mainly). All the files are stored in a folder called /userFiles and to open them, users are directed to a link 'userFiles/openFile.php?file=FILEID&code=FILECODE' where the unique file code must match up to the file id for the user to have access. This is a way of ensuring not anyone gets to protected files.

After access is verified, the following bit of code is run:

$contentType = filetype($fid . $ext); 
			header("Content-Type: $contentType\n"); 
			header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($name . $ext)); 
			readfile($fid . $ext);

This pops up awindow that enables users to either 'open' or 'save' the file they are trying to download.

Here is the problem- it seems the file is downloaded to temporary memory BEFORE the pop up even appears. This isn't a problem for little word or text documents, but for 2 or 3mb images, it means that the user doesn't know what's going on for quite some time.

Is there any way to fix this that you guys might see?

[altexis]

You are very right.. the fastest way is to read blocks of data and output them immediatelly.

if ($fp = fopen($file_name, 'rb')) {
  while (!feof($fp)) echo fread($fp, 4096);
  fclose($fp);
}
else die('Failed to open: ' . $file_name);

[foid025]

Will that give users the option to save the file though? Or will it just attempt to open it as best it can?

[foid025]

So I tried the code you suggested altexis but it does not give users the option to save files. So if I try to open an image, it just loads it in the browser. Do you know of any way to get around this?

Thanks a lot though for your help!

[altexis]

The code I gave you replaces only readfile($fid . $ext); .. if you keep the rest of the code you wrote in your opening post it will work fine 🙂

[foid025]

ahah now I see. Okay thanks a lot altexis, fixed my problems! 😉