Download a File and Upload it with PHP and AJAX - php

Question

I am developing a web application that uses JQuery AJAX and PHP to upload some data into my database.
One of the fields of the form to be submitted is an URL of a image (any address of the WEB). This image should be downloaded to my FTP server and then its new addrress would be inserted into the database.
How can I download an image from any URL and upload it to my FTP server?
Form:
<form id="form-id" method="post" action="insert.php" charset=utf-8">
<input type="text" name="title" id="title">
<input type="text" name="image-url" id="image-url">
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit">
</form>
JavaScript
$("#submit").live("click", function(event){
event.preventDefault();
$.ajax({
type : "POST",
url : "insert.php",
data : {
'title': valueTitle,
'image': valueImage
},
cache : false,
success : function(html) {
if (html == "success") {
//...
} else if (html == "ftp-error") {
//...
} else if (html == "sql-error") {
//...
}
}
});
});
insert.php
$title = $_REQUEST['title'];
$image = $_REQUEST['image'];
$imageInMyServer = downloadImageFromURLAndUploadFTP($image);
function downloadImageFromURLAndUploadFTP($image) {
//that is what I want to know how to do.
}
//sql query with $title and $imageInMyServer
Notes:
The file I want to download is not on my server. It is somewhere else in the Internet and I need to download it to my FTP server
No. I cannot use the first external URL in my SQL Query

Answer 1

Here is a great example on how to do FTP transfers in PHP. As far as downloading the file, you could use wget if you're on linux (using the exec() function).
exec('wget -q ' . $url . ' -0 /path/to/newfile');
Stealing a code snippet from that link I gave you, here is what your function might look like:
function downloadImageFromURLAndUploadFTP($image) {
// in your case it would be some img extension like .jpg, .gif, or .png
// you can check the extension of $image and use that if you want.
$newFile = '/path/to/newfile.ext';
exec('wget -q ' . $image . ' -0 ' . $newFile);
if (file_exists($newFile)) {
// set up connection and login
$connect = ftp_connect($ftpServer);
$login = ftp_login($connect, $ftpUser, $ftpPass);
// check connection
if (!$connect || !$login) {
die('FTP connection has failed!');
} else {
echo "Connected to {$ftpServer}, for user {$ftpUser}";
}
// upload the file
$fileNameOnFTPServer = 'whateverYouWantToNameIt.ext'; // arbitrary extension
$upload = ftp_put($connect, $fileNameOnFTPServer, $newFile, FTP_BINARY);
// check upload status
if (!$upload) {
echo "FTP upload has failed!";
} else {
echo "Uploaded {$image} to {$ftpServer} as {$fileNameOnFTPServer}";
}
ftp_close($connect);
}
}
Note: Sometimes file_exists() doesn't behave the way we intended when the path begins with /. For example /path/to/file might exist but file_exists() will think it doesn't unless you remove the beginning "/". One way to get around that is to check it like this:
file_exists(substr($newFile, 1))
Good luck!

Answer 2

An alternative solution if you do not have exec privileges is to use curl to grab the image, or you could use file_get_contents(), there are many ways, its just personal preference.
Ive put together what your script may look like, im sure you can improve it.
insert.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST['image']) && isset($_POST['title'])){
if(substr($_POST['image'],0,4)=='http'){
$image = curlgetimage($_POST['image']);
$info = pathinfo($_POST['image']);
if(isset($info['extension']) && ($info['extension']=='gif' || $info['extension']=='png' || $info['extension']=='jpg')){
$path='./temp/'.md5($_POST['image']).'.'.$info['extension'];
file_put_contents($path,$image);
if(ftp_put_image($path)===true){
//Do your database stuff, remember to escape..
unlink($path);
echo 'Success';
}else{
echo 'ftp-fail';
}
}else{
echo'File type not allowed';
}
}else{
echo'Must start with http://';
}
}else{
header('Location: http://www.example.com/');
}
function ftp_put_image($file){
if(!file_exists($file)){return false;}
$fp = fopen($file, 'r');
$conn_id = ftp_connect('ftp.yourhost.com'); //change
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id,'username','password'); //change
$return=(ftp_fput($conn_id, $file, $fp, FTP_BINARY))?true:false;
ftp_close($conn_id);
fclose($fp);
return $return;
}
function curlgetimage($url) {
$header[] = 'Accept: image/gif, image/x-bitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg';
$header[] = 'Connection: Keep-Alive';
$header[] = 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8';
$curl = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'YourSpiderBot/0.01 (Bla Bla Robot; http://www.example.com; spider#example.com)'); //change
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_REFERER, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, 'gzip,deflate');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60);
$return = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
return $return;
}
?>