[RESOLVED] sending files with soap

timus

Hey All

Is this possible and if so, has anyone seen an example please?

Thanks

Tim

etully

Soap is designed for sending messages, not files.

Instead of starting with a tool (Soap) and trying to bend it to fit your task (sending files), I suggest that you start with your task and figure out which tool is best suited for the job. What are you trying to do?

timus

Hey thanks for the reply

I'd wanted to write a PHP Soap service that would receive a request for a file (from a client) and respond with that file. If the file completes successfully, the client sends another message confirming the transfer which is logged by the remote server.

There will be lots of different clients requesting different files at different times and I wanted to log which clients had requested what files and soap seemed like a good way of doing that.

I think it may be possible to encode the message with a mime attachment but not sure how you could go about that or if it would be advisable.

I know i could use FTP but this involves opening up firewall ports on the pc's running the client whereas port 80 will already be open.

Any suggestions gratefully received

Thanks
Tim

etully

Since you were planning on using soap, I assume that you have a scriptable language on the client side?

I would write a non-soap script on the server side that takes two kinds of inputs. Request for file or confirmation of file received like this:

http://server/script.php?user=17&file=23&action=get
or
http://server/script.php?user=17&file=23&action=done

If the action is a get, then you hand out the file and log the request. To send the file, do this:

header("Content-Type: image/x-png");
$file = "/path/to/your/file.png";
@readfile($file);

If the action is done, then update the logged request as complete.

The client side will have a script (language unimportant) that is in this form:
1. request file
2. confirm file received

This will work fine as long as you have a scriptable language on the client side. PHP, ASP, Actionscript, and even Javascript would be fine. This won't work if the client side is running HTML in a web browser unless you provide a button that says, "Click here when you have received the file" but it doesn't sound like that's the situation here.

timus

Hey thanks for the reply

I've done a very quick test just in a web browser with the code you (very kindly) supplied. This looks ideal for transmitting the file apart from it wanted to give the file i was sending the name of the php script I was running, but I can get round that in my client application.

The client application will be a desktop application rather than a scripted application so i'm hoping to get round the issue of having to click save which happens when you try the script in the browser.

I can still use soap if i feel the need to send more complex data but this method should work for downloading the files.

I'll give it try

Many thanks

Tim

Weedpacket

timus wrote:
but I can get round that in my client application.

Not necessary; the documentation for the [man]header[/man] function mentions the Content-Disposition: header.

timus wrote:
The client application will be a desktop application rather than a scripted application so i'm hoping to get round the issue of having to click save which happens when you try the script in the browser.

Since you're writing the client you're free to not put that confirmation step into the application.