Tracking download completion

[andrew.zahra@gmail.com]

Is there any way to track completion of a download with PHP? I would
like to be able to check if a download completed successfully.

My first thought is that I might need to use an applet?

Any suggestions appreciated.

[Andy Jeffries]

Re: Tracking download completion

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:19:01 -0800, andrew.zahra wrote:

Is there any way to track completion of a download with PHP? I would like
to be able to check if a download completed successfully.
>
My first thought is that I might need to use an applet?
>
Any suggestions appreciated.

According to the PHP manual, scripts are aborted if the client
disconnects. Therefore assuming you're using a PHP script to download the
file if it gets to the line after readfile() (or some such code) then the
client connection is still active and therefore the download completed.

However, you can turn this functionality off so the script always
completes whether the client disconnects or not. So it may be best to use
connection_abor ted() to see if the client is still connected.

You can read more about it here:

http://uk.php.net/manual/en/features.connection-handling.php

Cheers,


Andy


--
Andy Jeffries MBCS CITP ZCE CMDEV
Zend Certified Engineer
Certified MySQL Developer
gPHPEdit Lead Developer - http://www.gphpedit.org

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: Tracking download completion

andrew.zahra wrote:

Is there any way to track completion of a download with PHP? I would
like to be able to check if a download completed successfully.

Yes, there is -- if the downloaded file has been served through PHP. That
is:

<?php
// This file is "myvid.php" .
session_start() ;
$_SESSION['download_attem pts'][] = 'myvid';

header("Content-Type: video/mpeg");
print file_get_conten ts("myvid.mpeg" );

if (!connection_ab orted())
$_SESSION['download_succe sses'][] = 'myvid';
?>

Now to link to the video, use:

<a href="myvid.php " type="video/mpeg">myvid</a>

And to check to see download status:

<?php
session_start() ;
if (in_array('myvi d', $_SESSION['download_attem pts']))
{
if (in_array('myvi d', $_SESSION['download_succe sses']))
{
echo 'User fully downloaded myvid';
}
else
{
echo 'User partially downloaded myvid';
}
}
else
{
echo 'User has not attempted to download myvid';
}
?>

That should work, though web proxies may complicate matters. (e.g. web
proxy downloads whole file, but only transmits part of it to client.)

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
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