Fastest Way to Serve a File Using PHP

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I'm trying to put together a function that receives a file path, identifies what it is, sets the appropriate headers, and serves it just like Apache would.

The reason I am doing this is because I need to use PHP to process some information about the request before serving the file.

Speed is critical

virtual() isn't an option

Must work in a shared hosting environment where the user has no control of the web server (Apache/nginx, etc)

Here's what I've got so far:

File::output($path);

<?php
class File {
static function output($path) {
    // Check if the file exists
    if(!File::exists($path)) {
        header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
        exit();
    }

    // Set the content-type header
    header('Content-Type: '.File::mimeType($path));

    // Handle caching
    $fileModificationTime = gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s', File::modificationTime($path)).' GMT';
    $headers = getallheaders();
    if(isset($headers['If-Modified-Since']) && $headers['If-Modified-Since'] == $fileModificationTime) {
        header('HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified');
        exit();
    }
    header('Last-Modified: '.$fileModificationTime);

    // Read the file
    readfile($path);

    exit();
}

static function mimeType($path) {
    preg_match("|\.([a-z0-9]{2,4})$|i", $path, $fileSuffix);

    switch(strtolower($fileSuffix[1])) {
        case 'js' :
            return 'application/x-javascript';
        case 'json' :
            return 'application/json';
        case 'jpg' :
        case 'jpeg' :
        case 'jpe' :
            return 'image/jpg';
        case 'png' :
        case 'gif' :
        case 'bmp' :
        case 'tiff' :
            return 'image/'.strtolower($fileSuffix[1]);
        case 'css' :
            return 'text/css';
        case 'xml' :
            return 'application/xml';
        case 'doc' :
        case 'docx' :
            return 'application/msword';
        case 'xls' :
        case 'xlt' :
        case 'xlm' :
        case 'xld' :
        case 'xla' :
        case 'xlc' :
        case 'xlw' :
        case 'xll' :
            return 'application/vnd.ms-excel';
        case 'ppt' :
        case 'pps' :
            return 'application/vnd.ms-powerpoint';
        case 'rtf' :
            return 'application/rtf';
        case 'pdf' :
            return 'application/pdf';
        case 'html' :
        case 'htm' :
        case 'php' :
            return 'text/html';
        case 'txt' :
            return 'text/plain';
        case 'mpeg' :
        case 'mpg' :
        case 'mpe' :
            return 'video/mpeg';
        case 'mp3' :
            return 'audio/mpeg3';
        case 'wav' :
            return 'audio/wav';
        case 'aiff' :
        case 'aif' :
            return 'audio/aiff';
        case 'avi' :
            return 'video/msvideo';
        case 'wmv' :
            return 'video/x-ms-wmv';
        case 'mov' :
            return 'video/quicktime';
        case 'zip' :
            return 'application/zip';
        case 'tar' :
            return 'application/x-tar';
        case 'swf' :
            return 'application/x-shockwave-flash';
        default :
            if(function_exists('mime_content_type')) {
                $fileSuffix = mime_content_type($path);
            }
            return 'unknown/' . trim($fileSuffix[0], '.');
    }
}
}
?>
8 Answers

I coded a very simple function to serve files with PHP and automatic MIME type detection :

function serve_file($filepath, $new_filename=null) {
    $filename = basename($filepath);
    if (!$new_filename) {
        $new_filename = $filename;
    }
    $mime_type = mime_content_type($filepath);
    header('Content-type: '.$mime_type);
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="downloaded.pdf"');
    readfile($filepath);
}

Usage

serve_file("/no_apache/invoice243.pdf");
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