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From: Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.php
Subject: Why and wherefore file downloads
Organization: Still searching...
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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:43:31 -0500
Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.php:4463

I lifted something close to this off google, edited and now have it
working along with a cgi script of my own.

I'm way under skilled in this and I have noticed something remarkable
about the php part of the setup:  

-------        ---------       ---=---       ---------      -------- 
From_mohitsharma.net.php

php

<?php
   // The file path where the file exists
   $filepath = "**HERE**".$_GET['filename']."";
   header("Pragma: public");
   header("Expires: 0");
   header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
   //setting content type of page
   header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($filepath ));
   header("Content-Description: File Transfer");
   //Read File it will start downloading
   @readfile($filepath);
  ?>

-------        ---------       ---=---       ---------      -------- 

Notice the asterisked  `**HERE**' in line 2.

It does not seem to matter what I put there, the script still works.

I started out carefully putting the exact path there but later noticed
that it worked no matter what I put there.

Can anyone tell me why that is so?

-------        ---------       ---=---       ---------      -------- 
The cgi that calls the php code is short so included below as well.
-------        ---------       ---=---       ---------      -------- 
cgi (note that the actual files for download are in `DocumentRoot/fr/':

------- 8< snip ---------- 8< snip ---------- 8<snip ------- 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;

my ($frdir,$reg, @files, $php);
$php = './Frommohitsharma.net.php';
$reg = qr/\.(html|php|cgi|shtml|css|swf|sw[op]|~)$/;
$frdir = "../fr/";

print "content-type: text/html\n\n";

print "<html> <head>
<title>Free stuff </title>
</head>
<h3> Assorted downloads </h3>
<body bgcolor=\"beige\">

<ul>\n";

opendir my $dh, "$frdir" or die "Can't open $frdir: $!";

## exclude files matching $reg
@files = grep {!/$reg/ && -f "$frdir/$_"} readdir $dh;

for(sort @files){
  my $sz = (stat ("$frdir/$_"))[7];
  if($sz){
    $sz = ($sz / 1024.00 /1024.00 );
  }
  printf "%s %.2f %s\n", "<li> <h5><h3><a href=\"$php?filename=$_\"><font size=\"1\" color=\"black\">sz:", $sz," mb - </font> $_</h3></a>\n";
}

print "</ul>
</body></html>\n";