Check if file exists in .tar using PHP - php

Question

In my program I need to read .png files from a .tar file.
I am using pear Archive_Tar class (http://pear.php.net/package/Archive_Tar/redirected)
Everything is fine if the file im looking for exists, but if it is not in the .tar file then the function timouts after 30 seconds. In the class documentation it states that it should return null if it does not find the file...
$tar = new Archive_Tar('path/to/mytar.tar');
$filePath = 'path/to/my/image/image.png';
$file = $tar->extractInString($filePath); // This works fine if the $filePath is correct
// if the path to the file does not exists
// the script will timeout after 30 seconds
var_dump($file);
return;
Any suggestions on solving this or any other library that I could use to solve my problem?

Answer 1

The listContent method will return an array of all files (and other information about them) present in the specified archive. So if you check if the file you wish to extract is present in that array first, you can avoid the delay that you are experiencing.
The below code isn't optimised - for multiple calls to extract different files for example the $files array should only be populated once - but is a good way forward.
include "Archive/Tar.php";
$tar = new Archive_Tar('mytar.tar');
$filePath = 'path/to/my/image/image.png';
$contents = $tar->listContent();
$files = array();
foreach ($contents as $entry) {
$files[] = $entry['filename'];
}
$exists = in_array($filePath, $files);
if ($exists) {
$fileContent = $tar->extractInString($filePath);
var_dump($fileContent);
} else {
echo "File $filePath does not exist in archive.\n";
}