Download a file and manipulate it

[webdude2]

Hi folks. Here's what I need to do and I really don't know how to do it.

I need to download a file via HTTP to my server and run a find a replace on some test strings and name it data.txt. I need this done every day at 1AM. I can use cron to have a script run every day but I don't really have the knowledge to program such a script. If anyone knows where I can get ahold of such a script I'd appreciate the help.

 

[DRJ478]

1. Download a file to your server via HTTP.
Assumption: You have permission to download the data and do not violate any copyright or other laws by doing so (thanks to jimoblak to remind everyone of this!).
Use cURL functions of a socket. The PHP manual has explicit examples how to open a socket and send a HTTP request.

http://www.php.net/fsockopen

2. Hold the content in a string and perform your replacements using regular expressions.

http://www.php.net/pcre

3. Open a file stream and save the result.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.filesystem.php

4. Best is to have PHP as command line so you can trigger it with cron. There are workarounds where you can spawn e.g.Lynx and visit the script and trigger it. However, then you need a mechanism to make sure it only can be accessed once a day (to prevent abuse).

 

[sleipnir214]

Canonically, when data goes to a server, that's uploading.


From what are you going to do the upload?



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[DRJ478]

sleipnir214
I see, you understood the post differently. It wasn't clear to me that it might be an upload! I immediately thought of the screen-scraping scenario.