delete a file after download in codeigniter - php

Question

I want to remove my file from downloads directory after a user has downloaded it. But it is not deleted. I am using Codeigniter download_helper for downloading the file.
Below is my code:
Controller
public function download($key,$id)
{
$link=$this->article->download($key,$id);//get record from database via article model
if(empty($link))
{
show_404();
}
force_download(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$link->file_name, NULL);//download file
$this->article_lib->remove_downloaded($link->file_name);//user has downloaded so now delete this
}
Library
public function remove_downloaded($file_name)
{
if(file_exists(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$file_name))
{
unlink(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$file_name);
}
}

Answer 1

You can find out why it wont be deleted in system/helpers/download_helper.php, there is an exit, so all code you have after force_download() will never be executed.
//File: system/helpers/download_helper.php
// From line 135
// Generate the server headers
header('Content-Type: '.$mime);
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$filename.'"');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Content-Length: '.$filesize);
header('Cache-Control: private, no-transform, no-store, must-revalidate');
// If we have raw data - just dump it
if ($data !== NULL)
{
exit($data);
}
// Flush 1MB chunks of data
while ( ! feof($fp) && ($data = fread($fp, 1048576)) !== FALSE)
{
echo $data;
}
fclose($fp);
exit;
}

Answer 2

Sorry I was not reading, but the problem with your code is that it is missing the closing )
public function remove_downloaded($file_name)
{
if(file_exists($file_name)) // here is the problem
{
unlink($file_name);
}
}
Also the way the force download works is that anything after will not run. I would suggest using an ajax call after the controller.
UPDATE:
But as you have mentioned in your comment, you can delete the file before creating it as mentioned in this post Unlink after force download not working Codeigniter

Answer 3

I used ignore_user_abort(true) function (docs) to solve this issue, and it worked for me.
Try below code,
public function download($key, $id)
{
$link = $this->article->download($key, $id);//get record from database via article model
if (empty($link)) {
show_404();
}
force_download(DOWNLOADS_PATH . $link->file_name, NULL);//download file
ignore_user_abort(true); // Set whether a client disconnect should abort script execution
if (connection_aborted()) {
$this->article_lib->remove_downloaded($link->file_name);//user has downloaded so now delete this
}
}

Answer 4

While downloading you are passing the full path of the file you want to download but while deleting it, i mean while unlinking it you are passing only filename.
So please do try:
public function download($key,$id)
{
$link=$this->article->download($key,$id);//get record from database via article model
if(empty($link))
{
show_404();
}
force_download(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$link->file_name, NULL);//download file
$this->article_lib->remove_downloaded(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$link->file_name); //Included full path
}
Hope this helps.

Answer 5

just replace in controller function
this:
$this->article_lib->remove_downloaded($link->file_name);
with:
$this->article_lib->remove_downloaded(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$link->file_name);
or maybe with:
$this->article->remove_downloaded(DOWNLOADS_PATH.$link->file_name);

Answer 6

Make sure that you are deleting a file not the directory. if not sure
then try this. it will delete the file and directory also
function rrmdir($dir) {
if (is_dir($dir)) {
$files=scandir($dir);
foreach ($files as $file)
if ($file != "." && $file != "..") rrmdir("$dir/$file");
rmdir($dir);
}
else if (file_exists($dir)) unlink($dir);
}