PHP - Safe way to download large files?

Question

Information

There are many ways to download files in PHP, file_get_contents + file_put_contents, fopen, readfile and cURL.

Question?

• When having a large file, let's say 500 MB from another server / domain, what is the "correct" way to downloaded it safe? If connection failes it should find the position and continue OR download the file again if it contains errors.
• It's going to be used on a web site, not in php.exe shell.

What I figured out so far

• I've read about AJAX solutions with progress bars but what I'm really looking for is a PHP solution.
• I don't need to buffer the file to a string like file_get_contents does. That probably uses memory as well.
• I've also read about memory problems. A solution that don't use that much memory might be prefered.

Concept

This is sort of what I want if the result is false.

function download_url( $url, $filename ) {
    // Code
    $success['success'] = false;
    $success['message'] = 'File not found';
    return $success;
}

Answer 1

The easiest way to copy large files can be demonstrated here Save large files from php stdin but the does not shows how to copy files with http range

$url = "http://REMOTE_FILE";
$local = __DIR__ . "/test.dat";

try {
    $download = new Downloader($url);
    $download->start($local); // Start Download Process
} catch (Exception $e) {
    printf("Copied %d bytes\n", $pos = $download->getPos());
}

When an Exception occur you can resume the file download for the last point

$download->setPos($pos);

Class used

class Downloader {
    private $url;
    private $length = 8192;
    private $pos = 0;
    private $timeout = 60;

    public function __construct($url) {
        $this->url = $url;
    }

    public function setLength($length) {
        $this->length = $length;
    }

    public function setTimeout($timeout) {
        $this->timeout = $timeout;
    }

    public function setPos($pos) {
        $this->pos = $pos;
    }

    public function getPos() {
        return $this->pos;
    }

    public function start($local) {
        $part = $this->getPart("0-1");

        // Check partial Support
        if ($part && strlen($part) === 2) {
            // Split data with curl
            $this->runPartial($local);
        } else {
            // Use stream copy
            $this->runNormal($local);
        }
    }

    private function runNormal($local) {
        $in = fopen($this->url, "r");
        $out = fopen($local, 'w');
        $pos = ftell($in);
        while(($pos = ftell($in)) <= $this->pos) {
            $n = ($pos + $this->length) > $this->length ? $this->length : $this->pos;
            fread($in, $n);
        }
        $this->pos = stream_copy_to_stream($in, $out);
        return $this->pos;
    }

    private function runPartial($local) {
        $i = $this->pos;
        $fp = fopen($local, 'w');
        fseek($fp, $this->pos);
        while(true) {
            $data = $this->getPart(sprintf("%d-%d", $i, ($i + $this->length)));

            $i += strlen($data);
            fwrite($fp, $data);

            $this->pos = $i;
            if ($data === - 1)
                throw new Exception("File Corupted");

            if (! $data)
                break;
        }

        fclose($fp);
    }

    private function getPart($range) {
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RANGE, $range);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $this->timeout);
        $result = curl_exec($ch);
        $code = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
        curl_close($ch);

        // Request not Satisfiable
        if ($code == 416)
            return false;

            // Check 206 Partial Content
        if ($code != 206)
            return - 1;

        return $result;
    }
}

Answer 2

You'd want to download the remote file in chunks. This answer has a great example:

How download big file using PHP (low memory usage)