File wont open from link but will save

djwinder

Hi all

I have the follwing code embedded in a loop which extracts info from my database and displays it on the screen. The value held in 'filepath' is correct and refers to the file on my server but when I click the link, nothing happens. I can save a local copy of the file and view it but this is not ideal. Does anyone with more experience know why this would be the case and can you help me fix this so that the file opens when the link is clicked?

        $list .= "<br><br><tr><a href=".$row["filepath"].">Right Click here </a> and select 'Save Target As' to save the file to your PC </tr>";

thanks in advance

leatherback

could it be that
- the filepath is an absolute path on the server, rather than a relative path from the page it is being asked from
- The file sits in a folder outside the root of your www server, instead of in the world-accessable folders?

djwinder

Thank you very much for your advice,

The file does reside in the root so that is fine but it could be a problem with the absolute path that you mentioned.

The value is the whole path to the file but i didnt realise that this would cause problem.

The path relitive to the page would be the same but without the document root part of it so I am confused as to how this is causing the problem. However I will try to think of some code that will cut the document root out of the stored path and test to see if that will work.

leatherback

basically.. The outside world does noot know what the server looks like. So unless the document root is the same as the www-root, your local filesystem root will refer to a different file if you use that in the outsite (www) world.

djwinder

sorry i should have explained this more clearly. when a document is added from a local machine, a copy of it is uploaded to a documents folder in the root folder on the server. It is the full path to this uploaded document which is then added to the DB as the value 'filepath' so the link always points to the full address of the file on the server.

If i understand what your saying this set up should work but it still only functions with save as.

mikell

First, you might wanna change your code to the following:

$list .= "<br><br><tr><a href=\"".$row["filepath"]."\">Right Click here </a> and select 'Save Target As' to save the file to your PC </tr>";

Otherwise it will not work on any files named with a space.

What type of files are these? Can you post the HTML output of that loop? Or at least one link that doesn't work.

When you click the link, you say "nothing" happens...you don't get any type of error message at all?

Also, what is the full/absolute path of your website directory?

scrupul0us

actually:

$row["filepath"]

should be

htmlentities($row["filepath"])

at the very least... in case the DB is compromised he wont be affecting his end users...