December 03, 2018

Create a Zip File in PHP

In this post you will learn how you can upload files and convert them into a zip format. We will use zip extension of php. This is included in php's default extensions bundle.

Create a Zip File in PHP
Demo Download

Files we are going to create for this task are index.php, process-zip.php and style.css. 

  • index.php: will contain the form to upload files. 
  • process-zip.php: will contain the code to create a zip file of uploaded files.
  • style.css: will handle the styling of index.php.


index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Create a Zip File in PHP - Demo</title>
        <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/>
        <link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="container">
            <div class="my-4">
                <form action="process-zip.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
                    <div class="row">
                        <div class="col-6">
                            <input type="file" class="file-input" name="zip_files[]" multiple="multiple"/>
                        </div>
                        <div class="col-6 text-right">
                            <button type="submit" class="btn btn-blue">
                                <i class="fa fa-upload"></i> 
                                Upload
                            </button>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </form>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

process-zip.php

  • First check if there are any files uploaded.
  • Check if zip extension is loaded or not. If not loaded then load it based on operating system.
  • Initialize zip archive as $zip, name for the file as $filename, file path to store zip as $zip_file and array of extensions that are allowed to be added to zip. 
  • Loop through all files and if uploaded file's extension is present in allowed extensions array and file size is less than 2MB then add it to zip archive. 
  • Prepare the headers for download and download the zip archive file. Then delete it after triggering the download.
     
<?php
if(!empty($_FILES)){
    // If zip extension is not loaded then load it in runtime
    if(!extension_loaded('zip')){
        if(strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0,3)) === 'WIN'){
            load_lib('zip.dll');
        }else{
            load_lib('zip.so');
        }
    }
    
    // Initialize zip archive
    $zip = new ZipArchive();
    $filename = time() . '_zip_file.zip';
    $zip_file = __DIR__  .'/'. $filename;
    $allowed_files = ['pdf', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'gif', 'png', 'txt'];

    if($zip->open($zip_file, ZIPARCHIVE::CREATE|ZIPARCHIVE::OVERWRITE)){
        // Loop all files and add them to zip
        for($i = 0; $i < count($_FILES['zip_files']['name']); $i++){
            $extension = pathinfo($_FILES['zip_files']['name'][$i],PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
            $file_size_kb = number_format($_FILES['zip_files']['size'][$i] / 1024, 2);

            //If uploaded file type is in allowed filed types then add it to zip
            if(in_array($extension,$allowed_files) && $file_size_kb < 2048 && $i <= 15){
                $zip->addFile($_FILES['zip_files']['tmp_name'][$i],$_FILES['zip_files']['name'][$i]);
            }
        }
        $zip->close();
    }

    // If file exists then set download headers
    if(file_exists($zip_file)){
        ob_start();
        
        header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
        header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary'); 
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '";');
        header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($zip_file));
        
        ob_clean();

        readfile($zip_file);
        unlink($zip_file);
    }
}

style.css

*{
    box-sizing: border-box;
}
html,body{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}
body{
    background-color: #f6f6f6;
    font-family: "Segoe UI", "Roboto", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
    font-size: 15px;
    font-weight: normal;
    font-style: normal;
    line-height: 1.5;
}
.container{
    width: 100%;
    max-width: 1140px;
    margin-right: auto;
    margin-left: auto;
    padding-right: 15px;
    padding-left: 15px;
}
.my-4{
    margin-top: 1rem;
    margin-bottom: 1rem;
}
.text-right{
    text-align: right;
}
.row{
    display: -webkit-box;
    display: -ms-flexbox;
    display: flex;
    -ms-flex-wrap: wrap;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    margin-right: -15px;
    margin-left: -15px;
}
.col-6{
    width: 100%;
    min-height: 1px;
    padding-right: 15px;
    padding-left: 15px;
    -webkit-box-flex: 0;
    -ms-flex: 0 0 50%;
    flex: 0 0 50%;
    max-width: 50%;
}
.btn{
    display: inline-block;
    padding: 5px 10px;
    cursor: pointer;
    font: inherit;
}
.btn-blue{
    background-color: #006699;
    border: 1px solid #2b7cab;
    color: #ffffff;
}
Home