Downloading a large file using curl

I need to download remote file using curl.

Here's the sample code I have:

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

$st = curl_exec($ch);
$fd = fopen($tmp_name, 'w');
fwrite($fd, $st);
fclose($fd);

curl_close($ch);

But it can't handle big files, because it reads to memory first.

Is it possible to stream the file directly to disk?

Solution 1:

<?php
set_time_limit(0);
//This is the file where we save the    information
$fp = fopen (dirname(__FILE__) . '/localfile.tmp', 'w+');
//Here is the file we are downloading, replace spaces with %20
$ch = curl_init(str_replace(" ","%20",$url));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 50);
// write curl response to file
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
// get curl response
curl_exec($ch); 
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
?>

Solution 2:

I use this handy function:

By downloading it with a 4094 byte step it will not full your memory

function download($file_source, $file_target) {
    $rh = fopen($file_source, 'rb');
    $wh = fopen($file_target, 'w+b');
    if (!$rh || !$wh) {
        return false;
    }

    while (!feof($rh)) {
        if (fwrite($wh, fread($rh, 4096)) === FALSE) {
            return false;
        }
        echo ' ';
        flush();
    }

    fclose($rh);
    fclose($wh);

    return true;
}

Usage:

     $result = download('http://url','path/local/file');

You can then check if everything is ok with:

     if (!$result)
         throw new Exception('Download error...');