Create json data file with extension '.json' [duplicate] - javascript

So I want to write a REST API in PHP for JSON for consumption on the iPhone, but also a lot of websites and devices. I have the below code, when accessed via a GET statement, returns a file like:
1mdi2o3.part
How do I return something like: users.json
$db->setQuery( "SELECT * FROM users");
$db->query() or die($queryError);
$numRows = $db->getNumRows();
$row = $db->loadObjectList();
// PRINT JSON FILE
header("Content-type: application/json");
for($i = 0 ; $i < $numRows; $i++){
$json_output[$i] = $row[$i];
}
$MYjson_output = json_encode($json_output);
echo $MYjson_output;

Not entirely such what your goal is but here are 3-4 solutions that might work:
Common Solutions
Rewrite
This is probaly the most conventional way of getting clean URIs for your API. If you want the user part of user.json to be dynamic, you can use mod_rewrite (again assuming Apache) to rewrite your URLs to a php handler script. If you are going the conventional RESTful style URL route, you will probably want to use this anyway to achieve clean / separated URLs.
# For grabbing all users
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^users\.json rest.php [L]
# For grabbing one particular user
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9]+)\.json rest.php?user=$1 [L]
Where rest.php is your PHP handler script.
URL Rewriting without mod-rewrite
If you don't want to use mod_rewrite, you can also do something like
example.com/rest.php/users.json
example.com/rest.php/user-id.json
or even
example.com/rest.php/user-id
example.com/rest.php/user/user-id
Where rest.php is your PHP handler script. You can grab the user-id from the URL (or URI if we're talking RESTful terms) using the $_SERVER global with $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'].
Other solutions
Changing download name via Content-Disposition:
I believe you want to add the Content-Disposition header...
<?php
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="users.json"');
?>
This will force the file to be downloaded as user.json. This usually isn't the behavior expected for a REST API, but from the way your question was worded, I figured I'd throw it out there.
AddHandler (or AddType)
Assuming you're running an Apache server, you can also just use AddHandler directive to make .json extension files be treated like they are php.
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .json
Warning: Other plain .json files will be treated as PHP so you'd probably want to set this in a .htaccess file in the directory with the PHP script. This would work fine for this one URI but not ideal if you were exposing many URIs

Welcome to SO. Have you considered using the Zend framework for this application? I've written about this topic before, and if you do use Zend I could probably be of additional help. It would certainly help get you past the basics.
HTH,
-aj

The problem is this line:
header("Content-type: application/json");
I know this looks like the right way to do (after all, application/json is the official MIME type for JSON content), but it causes most browsers to present you with a file download dialog, when you just want to see the text. You can use the text/plain encoding to avoid this. Note that your AJAX/iPhone/... app probably doesn't care about the content type, so your API will work in both cases.
Also see this blog post which provides some more context.

Related

Retrieve a remote .csv file using Fetch API in JS [duplicate]

Are we allowed to link files directly from Github ?
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://raw.github.com/username/project/master/style.css"/>
<script src="https://raw.github.com/username/project/master/script.js"></script>
I know this is allowed on Google Code. This way I don't have to worry about updating a local file.
The great service RawGit was already mentioned, but I'll throw another into the ring: GitCDN.link
Benefits:
Lets you link to specific commits, as well as auto-get the latest (aka master)
Incurs no damage from high traffic volumes; RawGit asks that it's dev.rawgit.com links be only used during development, where as GitCDN give you access to the latest version, without the danger of the servers exploding
Give you the option of auto minifying your HTML, CSS and JavaScript, or serving it as written (https://min.gitcdn.link).
Adds compression (GZip)
Adds all the correct headers (Content-Type, cache-control, e-tag, etc)
Full disclosure, I'm a project maintainer at GitCDN.link
You can use external server rawgithub.com. Just remove a dot between words 'raw' and 'github' https://raw.github.com/.. => https://rawgithub.com/ and use it. More info you find in this question.
However, according to the rawgithub website it will be shutting down at the end of October 2019.
You can link directly to raw files, but it's best not to do it since the raw files always get sent with a plain/text header and can cause loading problems.
You need carry out the following steps
Get the raw url of the file from github. Which is something like https://raw.githubusercontent.com/username/folder/example.css
Visit http://rawgit.com/. Paste the git url above in the input box. It will generate two url's, one for development and other for production purpose.
Copy any one of them and you are done.
The file will act as a CDN. You can also use gist urls.
GitHub Pages: https://yourusername.github.io/script.js
GitHub repo raw files: https://github.com/yourusername/yourusername.github.io/blob/master/script.js
Use GitHub Pages, DO NOT use raw files.
Reason:
GitHub Pages are based on CDN, raw files are not. Accessing raw files will directly hit on GitHub servers and increase server load.
Add a branch your project using the name "gh-pages" and then you'll (shortly after branching) be able to use a direct URL such as https://username.github.io/project/master/style.css (using your URL, and assuming "style.css" is a file in the "master" folder in the root of your "project" repository...and that your Github account is "username").
For those who ended up in this post and just want to get the raw link from an image in GitHub:
If it is the case of an image, you can just add '?raw=true' at the end of the link to the file.
E.g.
Original link:
https://github.com/githubusername/repo_name/blob/master/20160309_212617-1.png
Raw link:
https://github.com/githubusername/repo_name/blob/master/20160309_212617-1.png?raw=true
Use jsdelivr.com
Copied directly from https://www.jsdelivr.com/?docs=gh:
load any GitHub release, commit, or branch
note: we recommend using npm for projects that support it
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/user/repo#version/file
load jQuery v3.2.1
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery#3.2.1/dist/jquery.min.js
use a version range instead of a specific version
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery#3.2/dist/jquery.min.js
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery#3/dist/jquery.min.js
omit the version completely to get the latest one
you should NOT use this in production
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js
add ".min" to any JS/CSS file to get a minified version
if one doesn't exist, we'll generate it for you
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery#3.2.1/src/core.min.js
add / at the end to get a directory listing
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jquery/jquery/
After searching for this same functionality, I ended up writing my own PHP script to act as a proxy. The trouble I kept running into is even when you get the RAW version/link from Github and link to it in your own page, the header sent over was 'text/plain' and Chrome was not executing my JavaScript file from Github. I also didn't like the other links posted for using third party services because of the obvious security/tampering issues possible.
So using this script, I can pass over the RAW link from Github, have the script set the correct headers, and then output the file as if it were coming from my own server. This script can also be used with a secure application to pull in non-secure scripts without throwing SSL errors warning of "Non-secure links used".
Linking:
<script src="proxy.php?link=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UserName/repo/master/my_script.js"></script>
proxy.php
<?php
###################################################################################################################
#
# This script can take two URL variables
#
# "type"
# OPTIONAL
# STRING
# Sets the type of file that is output
#
# "link"
# REQUIRED
# STRING
# The link to grab and output through this proxy script
#
###################################################################################################################
# First we need to set the headers for the output file
# So check to see if the type is specified first and if so, then set according to what is being requested
if(isset($_GET['type']) && $_GET['type'] != ''){
switch($_GET['type']){
case 'css':
header('Content-Type: text/css');
break;
case 'js':
header('Content-Type: text/javascript');
break;
case 'json':
header('Content-Type: application/json');
break;
case 'rss':
header('Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1');
break;
case 'xml':
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
break;
default:
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
break;
}
# Otherwise, try and determine what file type should be output by the file extension from the link
}else{
# See if we can find a file type in the link specified and set the headers accordingly
# If css file extension is found, then set the headers to css format
if(strstr($_GET['link'], '.css') != FALSE){
header('Content-Type: text/css');
# If javascript file extension is found, then set the headers to javascript format
}elseif(strstr($_GET['link'], '.js') != FALSE){
header('Content-Type: text/javascript');
# If json file extension is found, then set the headers to json format
}elseif(strstr($_GET['link'], '.json') != FALSE){
header('Content-Type: application/json');
# If rss file extension is found, then set the headers to rss format
}elseif(strstr($_GET['link'], '.rss') != FALSE){
header('Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1');
# If css xml extension is found, then set the headers to xml format
}elseif(strstr($_GET['link'], '.xml') != FALSE){
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
# If we still haven't found a suitable file extension, then just set the headers to plain text format
}else{
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
}
}
# Now get the contents of our page we're wanting
$contents = file_get_contents($_GET['link']);
# And finally, spit everything out
echo $contents;
?>
If your webserver has active allow_url_include, GitHub serving the files as raw plain/text is not a problem since you can include the file first in a PHP script and modify its Headers to the proper MIME type.

.js file as javascript source but acting as php on backend

I see much scripts in traffic exchange services or affiliate programs like the following
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://trafficexchange.com/trafficout/user/300?limit=10"></script>
A source without file extension. How does this work? Is this a javascript file or php file? If this is only javascript how can they access the database to collect stats about who clicked on your link etc (AJAX?)?
The query variable limit=10. Again, is this javascript or php? If it is javascript, how can you access this variable?
Other example from Google Ads
<script type="text/javascript">
google_ad_client = "xxxxxxx";
google_ad_slot = "xxxxx";
google_ad_width = 336;
google_ad_height = 280;
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
Again, how can google access their database to display relevant ads with only a .js file?
The client only expects one thing of an included <script> file: to have the proper Content-type: application/javascript header.
So a PHP file like this is valid (although bad form):
<?php
header('Content-type: application/javascript');
?>
var answerToEverything = <?php echo 42; ?>;
And the browser will see it as a valid JavaScript file containing
var answerToEverything = 42;
Even if the file is not explicitly named .js.
A more general approach is to capture all requests to your webserver, do some action, and then include your JavaScript file with the proper header.
Note that including PHP variables directly inside JavaScript files is considered bad practice.
For more information see How to pass variables and data from PHP to JavaScript?
Scripts like this are probably being run by PHP (or similar server-side scripting language).
Doing so is a case of, on an apache server, adding something similar to the following in the .htaccess file:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (.*)
RewriteRule ^trafficout/user/(\d+)$ some-script.php?%1&user=$1 [L]
What this is doing is looking for any requests for the above file, then passing in the query string ((.*)) and user id ((\d+)) into a php script.
What are %1 and $1 doing?
In a htaccess file %1 and $1 represent variables retrieved from RewriteConditions and RewriteRules. Specifically, %n represents any variables acquired from a %{QUERY_STRING} condition and $n repesents any variables acquired from rules. In both cases n represents the variable id. In the example above, there is one query string variable and one rewrite rule variable so both are 1.
For the script in your question, this will turn the second part of our rewrite rule into:
some-script.php?limit=10&user=300
How we get the variables from the query string etc is done via Regular Expressions, and is a WHOLE other topic that I am not going to go into right now.
The PHP script will then get the variables using $_GET or similar, for example:
$user = $_GET['user']; //bad example - no validation etc.
[L]?
This is a flag used to tell the server to stop processing any more rewrite rules.
No file extension
It is possible to call for a file without a file extension, as long as the script sets the correct content-type header, then the browser will process the returned file. In PHP, this would be done like:
<?php
header('Content-type: application/javascript');
And is sent before any content.
Google Ads
The original .js script is just a .js script. What the script is doing is generating an ajax call back to the Google Servers replacing local variables with whatever variables you have defined.

PHP Ajax jQuery cross domain file loading

So before you say this can't be done. These are all files that I have one server. I just have some of them listed under different domains.
My PHP script will access all the files but when I try to do an ajax request to try to load the file I will often get an error (because the site i am accessing is secure and the one I am accessing it through isn't).
What I need is a way to have php grab the file. But I need aJax to retrieve the file and render it for me. I am also using ACE editor to edit the file
The bit of code I have here will actually error out as well because it will load and print out the file where $page is defined but won't load where htmlspecialchars is.
<script>
var e = ace.edit("editor");
<?php
$page = readfile($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].$_GET['dir']);
echo 'e.setValue('.htmlspecialchars($page, ENT_QUOTES).');';
?>
</script>
I have an ajax get request working but it doesn't work when I go to a directory with a special htaccess file. Now I can't change the htaccess file (unless there is a way for me to confirm that it is my script running and not someone else.
The question is, how can I access those other files without getting that error? Mind you those files could be extension. It is not limited to just scripts or css, mostly they will be html or php files.
After an hour of searching the deep dark depths of the php.net site I was able to put together a solution that works.
<?php
echo htmlspecialchars(
addslashes(
file_get_contents(
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].$_GET['d‌​ir']
)
)
); ?>
the addslashes is the extra part that I needed. Then I also had to put it between the div for the editor. I couldn't use the editor.setValue() function.

HTTP File Download: Monitoring Download Progress

I am in a situation, when I have to implement downloading of large files(up to 4GB) from a Web server: Apache 2.4.4 via HTTP protocol. I have tried several approaches, but the best solution looks to be the usage of X-SendFile module.
As I offer progress bar for file uploads, I would need to have the same feature for file downloads. So here are my questions:
Is there any way, including workaround, to achieve file downloads progress monitoring?
Is there any way, including workaround, to calculate file download transfer speed?
Is there better way to provide efficient file downloads from a web server than usage of X-Sendfile module?
Is there better file download option in general, that would allow me to monitor file download progress? It can be a client (JavaScript) or server solution(PHP). Is there any particular web server that allows this?
Currently I use:
Apache 2.4.4
Ubuntu
Many times thanks.
2 ideas (not verified):
First:
Instead of placing regular links to files (that you want to download) on your page place links like .../dowanload.php which may look sth like this:
<?php
// download.php file
session_start(); // if needed
$filename = $_GET['filename']);
header( 'Content-type: text/plain' ); // use any MIME you want here
header( 'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . htmlspecialchars($filename) . '"' );
header( 'Pragma: no-cache' );
// of course add some error handling
$filename = 'c:/php/php.ini';
$handle = fopen($filename, 'rb');
// do not use file_get_contents as you've said files are up to 4GB - so read in chunks
while($chunk = fread($handle, 1000)) // chunk size may depend on your filesize
{
echo $chunk;
flush();
// write progress info to the DB, or session variable in order to update progress bar
}
fclose($handle);
?>
This way you may keep eye on your download process. In the meantime you may write progress info to the DB/session var and update progress bar reading status from DB/session var using AJAX of course polling a script that reads progress info.
That is very simplified but I think it might work as you want.
Second:
Apache 2.4 has Lua language built in:
mod_lua
Creating hooks and scripts with mod_lua
I bet you can try to write LUA Apache handler that will monitor your download - send progress to the DB and update progress bar using PHP/AJAX taking progress info from the DB.
Similarly - there are modules for perl and even python (but not for win)
I see main problem in that:
In a php+apache solution output buffering may be placed in several places:
Browser <= 1 => Apache <= 2 => PHP handler <= 3 => PHP Interpreter
process
You need to control first buffer. But directly from PHP it is impossible.
Possible solutions:
1) You can write own mini daemon which primary function will be only send files and run it on another than 80 port 8880 for example. And process downloading files and monitor output buffer from there.
Your output buffer will be only one and you can control it:
Browser <= 1 => PHP Interpreter process
2) Also you can take mod_lua and control output buffers directly from apache.
3) Also you can take nginx and control nginx output buffers using built-in perl (it is stable)
4) Try to use PHP Built-in web server and control php output buffer directly. I can't say anything about how it is stable, sorry. But you can try. ;)
I think that nginx+php+built-in perl is more stable and powerful solution.
But you can choose and maybe use other solution non in that list. I will follow this topic and waiting your final solution with interest.
Read and write to the database at short intervals is killing performance.
I would suggest to use sessions (incrementing the value of sent data in the loop) with which you can safely off by quite another php file, you can return data as JSON which can be used by the javascript function/plugin.

use javascript to read a link resource without ajax

Not sure if it's possible but how do I read a resource from a url using javascript without ajax?
for example, the following url is a static text file containing json encoded text
http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt
I'd like to use javascript to read the content from above link, read the json content into a javascript variable.
I can't use ajax because of cross site and I have no control over amazon S3 domain.
anyway to achieve this?
Try #Ben's suggestion first. If for any reason that doesn't work in your case, here's two options I've both seen and used, which may or may not be available in your case (I'm providing two overly simplified examples just to clarify my points):
Create a server side resource that resides in your domain and retrieves and returns the cross site content for you:
<?php
die(file_get_contents('http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt'));
Use mod_rewrite (or something similar) to create a virtual resource in your domain that resolves to the remote content behind the scenes:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^jsonencodedcontext\.txt$ http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt [P]

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