Compress a directory and all its multilevel subdirectories using php, tar and gz

xeirus

Hi!
I need a "very simple" PHP script which can compress a directory and all its multi-(infinite)level sub-directories using with .tar and .gz
I have tried many complex scripts so far which don't work as most of them use ZIP and I don't have access to ZIP
And a few of the simple ones, just don't function.

Please help!

Thank you !

Xeirus.

dagon

exec('tar -cvfz mytarfile.tgz mydir/');

xeirus

dagon;10991495 wrote:
exec('tar -cvfz mytarfile.tgz mydir/');

Hi dagon,
Thanks for the reply.
This only created a file called 'z' (no extension) with the file size of 10,240.
Any ideas?

dagon

ahh its the dash

exec('tar cvfz mytarfile.tgz mydir/');

should work (tested here)

xeirus

Now it doesn't even create that 'z' file.
I'm changing the path as /home/public/images/
Hope that's not a problem ?

dagon

try it on the command line before running it in a php script that way you will see any errors etc, but i did test it and found it worked fine for me.

xeirus

Ok, tried on command line, it seems it was the path but now I have this error on the command line:
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

dagon

should be previous errors which is why tar is failing, v = verbsoe it should be giving you a file list, does it?

xeirus

Yes, it does give the file list and goes through lots of files, as the zip becomes almost 150+MBs and then suddenly throws that error.

How do I find previous errors?

dagon

well it should be on screen if it passes by you need to send the output to a file so you can read it or i would pipe it to the more command

tar cvfz mytarfile.tgz mydir/ |more

tar cvfz mytarfile.tgz mydir/ >results.txt

xeirus

dagon,
No more errors, don't know why!
But it seems to work.

One question though, it seems to do this in background, I mean, if a user doesn't know that something is happening then they might hit refresh or something.

Is there any way I can actually tell the end-user to wait while the zip is being prepared and when it is REALLY finished then it asks the user to continue?

I can do a fake echo but that won't help.

dagon

as the manual says for exec

"If a program is started with this function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends."

xeirus

dagon,
Ok, understood, thank you 🙂

Can I show it to the end-user with "echo" in front of the "exec" statement?

xeirus

dagon,
just tried "echo" in front of the "exec" statement, it didn't show the output on the screen, like I was expecting.
Guesst its not possible? Or should I be using print or printf
I think print will only exactly print the whole line rather than letting it execute.

dagon

please read the manual page on how to show what the command returns to the user.

xeirus

Ok, thank you dagon ... will check it out ! 🙂