Reading and Writing .gz files in PHP

By: David Sklar  

You want to read or write compressed files. Use PHP's zlib extension to read or write gzip'ed files. To read a compressed file:

$zh = gzopen('file.gz','r') or die("can't open: $php_errormsg");
while ($line = gzgets($zh,1024)) {
    // $line is the next line of uncompressed data, up to 1024 bytes 
}
gzclose($zh) or die("can't close: $php_errormsg");

Here's how to write a compressed file:

$zh = gzopen('file.gz','w') or die("can't open: $php_errormsg");
if (-1 == gzwrite($zh,$s))   { die("can't write: $php_errormsg"); }
gzclose($zh)                or die("can't close: $php_errormsg");

The zlib extension contains versions of many file-access functions, such as fopen(), fread(), and fwrite() (called gzopen(), gzread(), gzwrite(), etc.) that transparently compress data when writing and uncompress data when reading. The compression algorithm that zlib uses is compatible with the gzip and gunzip utilities.

For example, gzgets($zp,1024) works like fgets($fh,1024). It reads up to 1023 bytes, stopping earlier if it reaches EOF or a newline. For gzgets( ), this means 1023 uncompressed bytes.

However, gzseek() works differently than fseek(). It only supports seeking a specified number of bytes from the beginning of the file stream (the SEEK_SET argument to fseek( )). Seeking forward (from the current position) is only supported in files opened for writing (the file is padded with a sequence of compressed zeroes). Seeking backwards is supported in files opened for reading, but it is very slow.

The zlib extension also has some functions to create compressed strings. The function gzencode( )compresses a string and gives it the correct headers and formatting to be compatible with gunzip. Here's a simple gzip program:

$in_file = $_SERVER['argv'][1];
$out_file = $_SERVER['argv'][1].'.gz';

$ifh = fopen($in_file,'rb')  or die("can't open $in_file: $php_errormsg");
$ofh = fopen($out_file,'wb') or die("can't open $out_file: $php_errormsg");

$encoded = gzencode(fread($ifh,filesize($in_file)))
                             or die("can't encode data: $php_errormsg");

if (-1 == fwrite($ofh,$encoded)) { die("can't write: $php_errormsg"); }
fclose($ofh)                 or die("can't close $out_file: $php_errormsg");
fclose($ifh)                 or die("can't close $in_file: $php_errormsg");

The guts of this program are the lines:

$encoded = gzencode(fread($ifh,filesize($in_file)))
                             or die("can't encode data: $php_errormsg);
if (-1 == fwrite($ofh,$encoded)) { die("can't write: $php_errormsg"); }

The compressed contents of $in_file are stored in $encoded and then written to $out_file with fwrite( ).

You can pass a second argument to gzencode( ) that indicates compression level. Set no compression with 0 and maximum compression with 9. The default level is 1. To adjust the simple gzip program for maximum compression, the encoding line becomes:

$encoded = gzencode(fread($ifh,filesize($in_file)),9)
                             or die("can't encode data: $php_errormsg);

You can also compress and uncompress strings without the gzip-compatibility headers by using gzcompress()and gzuncompress().




Archived Comments


Most Viewed Articles (in PHP )

isset() function in PHP

PHP convert string to lower case

Reading .ini files in PHP

PHP ./configure RESULTING IN [email protected]_2_2_3_... AND UNRESOLVED REFERENCES WITH ORACLE OCI8

Convert IP address to integer and back to IP address in PHP

PHP 5.1.4 INSTALLATION on Solaris 9 (Sparc)

Building PHP 5.x with Apache2 on SuSE Professional 9.1/9.2

Installing PHP 5.x with Apache 2.x on HP UX 11i and configuring PHP 5.x with Oracle 9i

Cannot load /usr/local/apache/libexec/libphp4.so into server: ld.so.1:......

Setting up PHP in Windows 2003 Server IIS7, and WinXP 64

error: "Service Unavailable" after installing PHP to a Windows XP x64 Pro

Running different websites on different versions of PHP in Windows 2003 & IIS6 platform

Function to return number of digits of an integer in PHP

Function to sort array by elements and count of element in PHP

Function to force strict boolean values in PHP

Latest Articles (in PHP)

Comment on this tutorial