Member Avatar for drsmith

I want to create a dynamic link to a file...basically the info is displayed in a .php template read in from MySQL db. I want to also have a link to the saved text file. Here is some of what I have:

$date=$_POST[Date_Entered];
$shift=$_POST[shift];
$shift_table=$shift."_shift_duties";

$fileDir="TOP".$shift."Shiftlog"
$fileID=.$date."_".$shift."shift.rtf";

and later in the form:

echo"<a href='file:///N:/'$fileDir'/'$fileID>Link to text file</a>(testing)";

Having trouble with the format...is this something that can be done?

Thanks
DS

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Dani AI

Generated

Good troubleshooting so far — spotted the missing semicolon and tracked down the stray dot. Two important follow-ups that the thread does not yet cover:

  1. Browser and mapping quirks: embedding file:// links in pages served over HTTP is unreliable (many browsers block them or treat them as mixed content). Also, drive letters are user-specific: a mapped N: on your workstation may not exist for the web server or for other clients.
  2. Safer pattern: let the server deliver the file. That avoids client-side file:// issues and lets you enforce permissions and sanitize input.

A simple, secure workflow:

  • Accept a short identifier (never a full path) from the UI.
  • Map that to a fixed server-side base directory.
  • Use basename() and realpath() to normalise and prevent traversal, and check is_readable().
  • Stream the file with appropriate headers (content-type, content-disposition) so the browser receives it over HTTP.

Example server-side wrapper (place in a file like download.php):

<?php
// download.php - server streams an allowed file
$fileParam = isset($_GET['f']) ? $_GET['f'] : '';
$group = isset($_GET['g']) ? $_GET['g'] : '';
$filename = basename($fileParam);
$baseDir = realpath('/path/to/shift_files'); // change to your server share root
$fullPath = $baseDir . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $group . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $filename;
$real = realpath($fullPath);

if ($real && strpos($real, $baseDir) === 0 && is_readable($real)) {
    header('Content-Type: application/rtf');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '"');
    readfile($real);
    exit;
}
http_response_code(404);
?>

Extra tips: HTML href values should be escaped with htmlspecialchars() and any URL parts rawurlencoded. Ensure the webserver account can access the network share (use UNC paths from the server, not per-user mapped drives). See the PHP manual for basename(), realpath(), is_readable(), and readfile() for details: basename (realpath) (is_readable) (readfile).

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Member Avatar for MitkOK

Hi.

Here you forgot to put ; ...

$fileDir="TOP".$shift."Shiftlog"

This is working, but I don't know what exactly do you want :

echo"<a href='file:///N:/$fileDir/$fileID'>Link to text file</a>(testing)";
Member Avatar for drsmith

Thanks for pointing that out, still can't get it to work. I am trying to create a link to a file with the following naming convention N:/TOPRShiftlog/2007-12-02_RShift.rtf

the Directory "R" has to be dynamic, being read in with 2 other possibilities, date being read in and the last "R" being dynamic as there are also 2 choices.

Member Avatar for MitkOK

I used for date '2007-12-12' and for shift 'R' :

<?php

$date='2007-12-12';
$shift='R';
$shift_table=$shift."_shift_duties";

$fileDir="TOP".$shift."Shiftlog";
$fileID=$date."_".$shift."shift.rtf";

echo"<a href='file:///N:/$fileDir/$fileID'>Link to text file</a>(testing)";

?>

This code return me a link pointing to 'file:///N:/TOPRShiftlog/2007-12-12_Rshift.rtf' ...
This is what you want when I read the previos post.

Member Avatar for drsmith

Thanks for the help. The problem was the "." before the date. It is not being appended to anything so no "." needed.

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