PHP Zip is downloaded empty

Question

In my website, the user will be able to download multiples files in a ZIP. The problem is that zip->close() delete all the files that I added in the foreach loop.

Here is the code:

  foreach ($file_name_list as $file_name) {
    var_dump($zip);
    echo '<br>';

    $zip->addFile($files_path . $file_name, $file_name);
  }

  var_dump($zip);
  echo '<br>';

  $zip->close();
  echo '<br>';
  echo 'After closing:<br>';

  var_dump($zip);
  echo '<br>';

Here is the ouput:

object(ZipArchive)#4 (5) { ["status"]=> int(0) ["statusSys"]=> int(0) ["numFiles"]=> int(0) ["filename"]=> string(29) "/var/www/html/files/tests.zip" ["comment"]=> string(0) "" } 
object(ZipArchive)#4 (5) { ["status"]=> int(0) ["statusSys"]=> int(0) ["numFiles"]=> int(1) ["filename"]=> string(29) "/var/www/html/files/tests.zip" ["comment"]=> string(0) "" } 
object(ZipArchive)#4 (5) { ["status"]=> int(0) ["statusSys"]=> int(0) ["numFiles"]=> int(2) ["filename"]=> string(29) "/var/www/html/files/tests.zip" ["comment"]=> string(0) "" } 

Afterclosing:
object(ZipArchive)#4 (5) { ["status"]=> int(0) ["statusSys"]=> int(0) ["numFiles"]=> int(0) ["filename"]=> string(0) "" ["comment"]=> string(0) "" } 

As you can see, when PHP runs zip->close() it deletes the files added. It also deletes the name of the file. I don't know what is wrong because it works fine on my Windows local machine but does not work on my Ubuntu virtual machine on the server.

How to fix that?

Do I really need zip->close() ? I just want to download the files not matter how.

Answer 1

I found the answer myself.

The problem was that when opening the zip through zip->open($zipname, ZipArchive::CREATE) you have to use the full path to the zip, not the zip name. I think another problem is that the zip was created with few permissions, so it was not possible to download it.

The code that works:

function donwloadFilesInZip($array) { 
  $filesName = $array['files'];
  $filesPath = rtrim($array['filesDir'], '/');
  $zipName = $array['zipname'];
  $zipPath = "$filesPath/$zipName";

  $zip = new ZipArchive();
  if($zip->open($zipPath, ZipArchive::CREATE)) {
    foreach ($filesName as $fileName) {
      if(file_exists("$filesPath/$fileName")) {
        $zip->addFile("$filesPath/$fileName", $fileName);
      }
    }
    $zip->close();

    #file permissions
    chmod($zipPath, 777);
    #headers
    header('Content-type: application/zip'); 
    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$zipName");
    header('Content-length: ' . filesize($zipPath));

    #refresh the file permissions in order to read it
    ob_clean();
    flush();
    #download
    readfile($zipPath);
    #delete
    unlink($zipPath);
  } else {
    #display some error message here
  }
}

The old code (worked well in my Windows local machine, but not in Ubuntu):

function donwload_files_in_zip($array) {
    $file_name_list = $array['files_list'];
    $zip_name = $array['zipname'];
    $files_path = $array['files_path'];

    $zip = new ZipArchive();
    $zip->open($zip_name, ZipArchive::CREATE);
    foreach ($file_name_list as $file_name) {
      $zip->addFile($files_path . $file_name, $file_name);
    }

    $zip->close();

    // headers
    header('Content-Type: application/zip');
    header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename = $zip_name");
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($zip_name));

    // download
    readfile($zip_name);

    // delete
    unlink($zip_name);
}