Entry

How do I track file downloads for storage in a database?

How do I get information from Apache?

How can I send files to the client?

Feb 18th, 2000 09:13
Matt Gregory, Matt Herbert, Dax Mickelson, unknown unknown,

There are many ways to approach this problem but all require that you 
return the file through a script (Obviously since you must call PHP to 
put the information in the database).
The approach I find most appealing is this:
(Called something like this--> http://mysite/getfile.php3?fileid=0001)
Get the id of the file they are wanting to download and look it up in 
your database.  Send a header to the client with the file's mime type 
and then pump the file using the fopen/fread functions.
Then just use date functions to get the date, you already have the 
filesize and filename.  You can get the time before the download starts 
to figure out how long it took to send it (approximate). As far as user 
information: require that everyone downloading a file provide a 
username and email (or even a password) either at download time or when 
they enter your site (via user-entry or cookie).
You can also get information on the request from Apache using the 
Apache specific getallheaders() 
(http://www.php.net/manual/html/function.getallheaders.html) function.
There is probably a way to get information on the user cancelling the 
download from Apache, but I am not familiar with Apache.  If someone 
else knows how to do this, please input.