php - Pass contents of file to function that's expecting a filename - php

I have the contents of a file in a string. I need to pass this file to a function where the function is expecting the parameter to be the name of the file, not the contents. The obvious and probably simplest way to do this would be to write the contents to a temp file, then pass that file name to the function, and unlink the file once I'm finished.
However, I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve writing the file out to the file system and then reading it back in. I've had a need for this in multiple cases, so I'm not looking for a work-around to a specific function, but more of a generic method that will work for any function expecting a file name (like file_get_contents(), for instance).
Here are some thoughts, but not sure how to pursue these yet:
Is it possible to write the contents somewhere in memory, and then
pass that to the function as a filename? Perhaps something using
php://memory.
Is it possible to write the contents to a pipe, then pass the name of the
pipe to the function?
I did a short proof-of-concept trying with php://memory as follows, but no luck:
$data = "This is some file data.\n";
file_put_contents( 'php://memory', $data );
echo file_get_contents( 'php://memory' );
Would be interested in knowing of good ways to address this. Googling hasn't come up with anything for me.

It mainly depends on what the target function does with the file name. If you're lucky, you can register your own stream wrapper:
stream_wrapper_register('demo', 'DemoStream');
$data = "This is some file data.\n";
$filename = 'demo://foo';
file_put_contents($filename, $data );
echo file_get_contents($filename);

Why not use a file in the /tmp/ directory? Like this:
<?php
$filename = '/tmp/mytmpfile';
$data = "This is some file.\n";
file_put_contents($filename, $data);
$result = file_get_contents($filename);
var_dump($result);

Well, as you say you don't want to use a file, you shouldn't use file_get_contents().
But you can achieve the same result by using stream_get_contents(), like this:
<?php
$data = "This is some file data.\n";
$handle = fopen('php://memory', 'r+'); // open an r/w handle to memory
fputs($handle, $data); // write the data
rewind($handle); // rewind the pointer
echo stream_get_contents($handle); // retrieve the contents

Related

fgetcsv returning NULL in PHP 4

One of our systems is running on PHP 4 and no I can't change that.
The fgetcsv function seems to return null no matter what file I upload.
Very simply put:
$handle = fopen($file,"r");
var_dump(fgetcsv($handle));
fclose($handle);
This will print out "NULL".
Doing var_dump on the $handle object does give me a resource:
resource(33) of type (stream)
But I just get NULL when using fgetcsv
I can get the contents of the file using file_get_contents, but then it's more awkawrd to parse it as a csv.
As I say, I can't really do anything about it being on PHP 4. Does anyone know what might be causing this, or shall I find another way?
Thanks
Your original issue may be related to temporary uploaded file usage.
Try to open it after move_uploaded_file
Also, fseek($handle, 0) can help theoretically, because it was read already anywhere.
I can get the contents of the file using file_get_contents
You can try to use tmpfile then:
$csv = file_get_contents($file);
$temp = tmpfile();
fwrite($temp, $csv);
fseek($temp, 0); // prepare for read at start
$data = fgetcsv($temp);
fclose($temp); // file autoremoved here

PHP How to read entire TXT file

Good Day All
I have a .php file which I want to edit via fopen() and file_get_content() functions. However, my file contains some php codes as well and I managed to get the content out of my file but without the php part. Also, I have tried the eval() (I know it's not suggested!) function with same results. I was wondering if there could be a way to get whatever is inside that file regardless wether it's text or codes.
Thanks
Here is the code I used:
public function editwarning()
{
$filename = "http://www.parkho.ir/admin/templates/pm/email_warning.php";
$content = file_get_contents($filename);
echo $content;
}
You have two options:
1) pass the file PATH to the $filename var:
$filename = "/var/www/app/email_warning.php"; // <--- replace /var/www/app for your path
2) Or You need to use htmlentities():
<?php
$content = htmlentities(file_get_contents($filename));
echo $data;

How do I open a file called file*.txt in PHP

<?
$file = ("file*");
$fp = fopen($file, 'a') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fp, "testing");
fclose($fp);
?>
I want "testing" to be written to a file called file2.txt, but it instead writes to file*. I know that i can just set $file to "file2.txt", but this is just hypothetical.
I don't believe that globbing works the way you have it listed here. You could use the glob() function, which returns an array of matched filenames:
array = glob("file*")
I wouldn't recommend doing this, of course, because it's often hard to know that you'll only have a single file called file2.txt in the directory. If you do know that, it's better to specify explicitly, rather than using globbing.
That said, if you wanted to do things this way, that's how I would do it.

How to get a temporary file path?

I know you can create a temporary file with tmpfile and than write to it, and close it when it is not needed anymore. But the problem I have is that I need the absolute path to the file like this:
"/var/www/html/lolo/myfile.xml"
Can I somehow get the path, even with some other function or trick?
EDIT:
I want to be able to download the file from the database, but without
$fh = fopen("/var/www/html/myfile.xml", 'w') or die("no no");
fwrite($fh, $fileData);
fclose($fh);
because if I do it like this, there is a chance of overlapping, if more people try to download the same file at exactly the same time. Or am I wrong?
EDIT2:
Maybe I can just generate unique(uniqID) filenames like that, and than delete them. Or can this be too consuming for the server if many people are downloading?
There are many ways you can achieve this, here is one
<?php
// Create a temp file in the temporary
// files directory using sys_get_temp_dir()
$temp_file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'MyFileName');
echo $temp_file;
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
/var/tmp/MyFileNameX322.tmp
I know you can create a temporary file with tmpfile
That is a good start, something like this will do:
$fileHandleResource = tmpfile();
Can I somehow get the path, even with some other function or trick?
Yes:
$metaData = stream_get_meta_data($fileHandleResource);
$filepath = $metaData['uri'];
This approach has the benefit of leaving it up to PHP to pick a good place and name for this temporary file, which could end up being a good thing or a bad thing depending on your needs. But it is the simplest way to do this if you don't yet have a specific reason to pick your own directory and filename.
References:
http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.stream-get-meta-data.php
Getting filename (or deleting file) using file handle
This will give you the directory. I guess after that you are on your own.
For newer (not very new lol) versions of PHP (requires php 5.2.1 or higher) #whik's answer is better suited:
<?php
// Create a temp file in the temporary
// files directory using sys_get_temp_dir()
$temp_file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'MyFileName');
echo $temp_file;
?>
The above example will output something similar to: /var/tmp/MyFileNameX322.tmp
old answer
Just in case someone encounters exactly the same problem. I ended up doing
$fh = fopen($filepath, 'w') or die("Can't open file $name for writing temporary stuff.");
fwrite($fh, $fileData);
fclose($fh);
and
unlink($filepath);
at the end when file is not needed anymore.
Before that, I generated filename like that:
$r = rand();
$filepath = "/var/www/html/someDirectory/$name.$r.xml";
I just generated a temporary file, deleted it, and created a folder with the same name
$tempFolder = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'MyFileName');
unlink($tempFolder);
mkdir($tempFolder);

Best way to download a file in PHP

Which would be the best way to download a file from another domain in PHP?
i.e. A zip file.
The easiest one is file_get_contents(), a more advanced way would be with cURL for example. You can store the data to your harddrive with file_put_contents().
normally, the fopen functions work for remote files too, so you could do the following to circumvent the memory limit (but it's slower than file_get_contents)
<?php
$remote = fopen("http://www.example.com/file.zip", "rb");
$local = fopen("local_name_of_file.zip", 'w');
while (!feof($remote)) {
$content = fread($remote, 8192);
fwrite($local, $content);
}
fclose($local);
fclose($remote);
?>
copied from here: http://www.php.net/fread
You may use one code line to do this:
copy(URL, destination);
This function returns TRUE on success and FALSE on failure.

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