You may wish to generate ZIP folders from your application and force a download for your users; for example, if you have a group of files, such as a press pack, which you wish to be kept together, or a set of CSV files. Saving them into a ZIP file and allowing a download is a great way to do this.
We're going to create a new file:
/path/to/codeigniter/application/controllers/zip.php
And copy the following code into it:
<?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed'),
class Zip extends CI_Controller {
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->load->helper('form'),
$this->load->helper('url'),
$this->load->library('zip'),
}
public function index() {
redirect('zip/zipme'),
}
public function zipme() {
$file_name = '/path/to/zip/tozip.txt';
// Create some data for the file
$data = 'This is a string of text which we will use to write to the file in the variable $file_name';
// Set the time (to be used as ZIP filename)
$date = date("d-m-Y", time());
// Save some data to the ZIP archive
$this->zip->add_data($file_name, $data);
// Create the ZIP archive on your server - make sure this path is
// outside of your web root
$this->zip->archive('/path/in/zip/'.$date.'.zip'),
// Download the ZIP archive
$this->zip->download($date.'.zip'),
// Clear the cached ZIP archive
$this->zip->clear_data();
}
} This is actually quite simple, we start by declaring a $file_name. This is a string, you'll notice that the filename also contains a folder name my_zipped_files_folder—you don't have to include a folder but if you do CodeIgniter will automatically create a folder in the ZIP archive.
We then create some data—in this case it is written as a string of text; however, it could easily be output from a database. For example, we could change the $data line to:
$data = '';
foreach ($database_result->result() as $row) {
$data .= $row->item_1;
$data .= $row->item_2;
$data .= $row->item_3;
} After we create our $data we then create the date, which we'll use in the filename for our ZIP. The line $this->zip->add_data($file_name, $data); takes as argument the filename and data we created earlier and creates a file inside the ZIP file and fills it with the string in $data. $this->zip->archive('/path/to/your/zip/folder/'.$date.'.zip'), will write the ZIP to the disc using $date as the ZIP filename. $this->zip->download($date.'.zip'), forces the ZIP file to open in the client browser and $this->zip->clear_data(); will clear the ZIP file from the cache.