change file extension question

[drooh]

I've got files on the server that have a different extension than what they are, some files have no extension at all.

is there a way to have php translate them? for instance if I have a file 12345.htm but its really song.mp3 is there a way to write a script that will download 12345.htm as song.mp3?

[g1smd]

URLs are used on the web. Files are used internally within the server.

Requests to your server for URL 'A' can be intercepted by Mod_Rewrite and a suitable rewrite will pull the content from file 'B'. These rules can be crafted to cover just one file at a time, or with a suitable regular expression can deal with all URLs of a certain type/pattern. Note this is a rewrite, not a redirect.

The file extension part of the filename of the file on the server is used to trigger the action of adding a suitable MIME type as the content is served.

[drooh]

thanks for the info, but I still have the same question.

is there a way to write a script that will download 12345.htm as song.mp3?

[midtempo]

g1smd did answer your question, so this is just what he said, really.

you can make the server send song.mp3 when 12345.htm is requested. but php isn't what you need - you want to look at apache mod_rewrite to do this.

[g1smd]

Yes, check up on

Mod_Rewrite

code and the Apache forum at WebmasterWorld for many prior examples.

[drooh]

im looking into this but may be a bit confusing.

I want to be able to click a link
<a href="download.php?file=random.htm">click</a>
and it pop up a window asking you to download songname.mp3 or files.zip. is there a preferred way to do this?

Here is another example. I am using a third party flash uploader which has an option to change the file name on the upload. it makes it some arbitrary file name and I think with no extension name at all. how are you supposed to work with something like that?

[midtempo]

> is there a preferred way to do this?

yes, with Mod_Rewrite.

you're wanting the server to send "file A" when someone asks for "file B". now, you could write a script in php that finds the correct file, reads it into memory, generates the right MIME Type (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME_type) in the header and then outputs the file contents into the page, but this would be resource intensive and, imo, a really bad idea.

the simple, clean, fast way of doing this is by using Mod_Rewrite.

> how are you supposed to work with something like that?

by finding another upload script.