Create zip file on the fly with PHP

Hi,

This post is about creating zip files on the fly. I have found a class over the internet which allows you to do that. First of all you need to download the class file. Click here to download the class file. Once you have downloaded the code, create another file example.php and put the following:


<?php
require "zip.class.php";
$zipfile = new zipfile;

function make_archieve($location,$type,$filename,$zipfile)
{
if($type=="dir"){
$dir=opendir($location);
$i=0;
while($files=readdir($dir)){
if($i>1 && filetype($location."/".$files)!="dir"){
$tmp_location=str_replace("./","",$location);
$tmp_location=$tmp_location."/";
if($tmp_location=="./"){$tmp_location="";}
$zipfile->create_file(file_get_contents($location."/".$files), $tmp_location.$files);


}elseif($i>1){
$tmp_location=str_replace("./","",$location);
$tmp_location= str_replace("./","",$tmp_location."/".$files);
$zipfile->create_dir($tmp_location);
make_archieve($location."/".$files,$type,$filename,$zipfile);
}
$i++;
}
header("Content-type: application/zip");
header("Content-disposition: attachment;filename=\"".$filename."\"");
echo $zipfile->zipped_file();
}else{

}
}

make_archieve(".","dir","archieve.zip",$zipfile);

?>

In the above code I have created a recursive function to browse through all the files and subfolders of a given directory and creating a zip file for it. As the zip file is getting created it is also getting downloaded at the same time. So you do not have to worry about storing the zip file in the server. This kind of functionality is important in music websites where an entire album needs to be zipped and downloaded.

The above code is pretty much self explanatory. But if you still find any issues, post in your comments and I will get back as soon I can :)

Best of luck