RE: [PHP] Re: Automatic Download using URL, HELP!

Bogdan - Sorry for the delay to your follow-up. The total script is below... first let me explain a little more of what I'm doing for clarity's sake. I'm downloading a lot of data files from a site. The way the site works, you supply some information in a form regarding the data set you want. This goes to a PERL script which creates a packaged (zipped) data set and puts it in an FTP directory. What I wanted to do was write a script that would automatically do the form submission, retrieve the name and location of the zip file, and save it to my local hard disk. I happened to have a list of over 1000 data set names that I wanted to get... so I just needed to loop through them. FWIW, the "faking a form post" part of this, which is really the core of what I'm doing, is based on the following in the pgp_general archives: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-general&m=101899239727991&w=2 You can search for this by searching the archives for the term "asphttp". ASPHTTP is a tool for ASP that does the same thing... only it costs money, and this little function is free! How cool is that? Here's the script (got it working, BTW). Chip <? /*--- PHP Script --------------*/ $data = array("dataset1", "dataset2", ... , "dataset1000"); //Loop through each value in the array, POSTING data, and downloading // the dataset to the hard drive. foreach($data as $a) { //Since this script is going to take a long time to execute // we need to set the max time limit to some really high // number so that it doesn't time out. This probably needs // to be done on the web_server as well (e.g. the def time-out // in IIS is 300 seconds). set_time_limit(120000); //The next two variables make up the location of the resource // that you will be posting to. This is basically what would // appear in the ACTION section of a FORM element. In this case: // http://www.someserver.com/cgi-bin/some_script.pl $host="www.someserver.com; $path="/cgi-bin/some_script.pl"; //The next line makes up the 'data to send' in the form. Apparently // if you start the string with a "&", this will use the POST method, // while if you start with a "?" it will use the GET method (or at // least it's acting like it's doing one or the other). $data_to_send = "&myDataSetName=" . $a . "&FormVar1=Value1&FormVar2=Value2"; PostToHost($host, $path, $data_to_send); } function PostToHost($host, $path, $data_to_send) { //This part of the function creates a file that essentially POSTs the // $data_to_send information to the $host . $path location, and retrieves // the information into a variable called $returnData $returnData=""; $fp = fsockopen($host,80); fputs($fp, "POST $path HTTP/1.1\n"); fputs($fp, "Host: $host\n"); fputs($fp, "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n"); fputs($fp, "Content-length: ".strlen($data_to_send)."\n"); fputs($fp, "Connection: close\n\n"); fputs($fp, $data_to_send); //Loop through the variable $returnData line-by-line. In this case, // I'm searching for a keyword. The name of the resulting file is always // on a line like this: // YOURFTPFILENAME = some_file_name_xxxx.xxxx //Once I hit this line, I want to save the entire line into a variable // called $filename, and break out of the loop. while(!feof($fp)) { $returnData=fgets($fp, 128); $filename = strstr($returnData, 'YOURFTPFILENAME'); if ($filename) break; } //Use some simple string parsing functions to strip out the "YOURFTPFILENAME = " // part of the filename. $filename = substr($filename, 18); $filename = trim($filename); //Now, I'm going to connect to and read the file that was created. In this case // it is always saved to the same location, so all I need to do is specify the // file name. The file will be read into a variable called $contents. $host = "http://www.someserver.com/ftp_downloads/images/"; $fp2 = fopen($host . $filename, "rb+"); $contents = fread ($fp2, 25000000); //use some rediculously large number in fread // to ensure that you get the whole thing. //make a file to write to on the local system, and dump $contents into the new // file. $fp3 = fopen("D:\\myFiles\\SomeDirectory\\" . $filename, "w"); fputs($fp3, $contents); //close all of the documents fclose($fp); fclose($fp2); fclose($fp3); } /*---- End of Script ---------------*/ ?> > -----Original Message----- > From: Bogdan Stancescu [mailto:mgv@canad.ro] > Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 10:29 PM > To: php-general@lists.php.net > Subject: [PHP] Re: Automatic Download using URL, HELP! > > > Just out of curiousity, how did you ever get PHP to prompt you where to > save a file? Could you post a more complete code sample? > > Bogdan