PHP - Convert File system path to URL

Question

I often find that I have files in my projects that need to be accessed from the file system as well as the users browser. One example is uploading photos. I need access to the files on the file system so that I can use GD to alter the images or move them around. But my users also need to be able to access the files from a URL like example.com/uploads/myphoto.jpg.

Because the upload path usually corresponds to the URL I made up a function that seems to work most of the time. Take these paths for example:

File System /var/www/example.com/uploads/myphoto.jpg

URL http://example.com/uploads/myphoto.jpg

If I had a variable set to something like /var/www/example.com/ then I could subtract it from the filesystem path and then use it as the URL to the image.

/**
 * Remove a given file system path from the file/path string.
 * If the file/path does not contain the given path - return FALSE.
 * @param   string  $file
 * @param   string  $path
 * @return  mixed
 */
function remove_path($file, $path = UPLOAD_PATH) {
    if(strpos($file, $path) !== FALSE) {
        return substr($file, strlen($path));
    }
}

$file = /var/www/example.com/uploads/myphoto.jpg;

print remove_path($file, /var/www/site.com/);
//prints "uploads/myphoto.jpg"

Does anyone know of a better way to handle this?

Answer 1

Try this:

$imgUrl = str_replace($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], '', $imgPath)

Answer 2

This simple snippet can convert the file path to file's url on the server. Some settings like protocol and port should be kept.

        $filePath = str_replace('\\','/',$filePath);
        $ssl = (!empty($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && $_SERVER['HTTPS'] == 'on') ? true : false;
        $sp = strtolower($_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']);
        $protocol = substr($sp, 0, strpos($sp, '/')) . (($ssl) ? 's' : '');
        $port = $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'];
        $stringPort = ((!$ssl && $port == '80') || ($ssl && $port == '443')) ? '' : ':' . $port;
        $host = isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST'] : isset($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] : $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
        $fileUrl = str_replace($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] ,$protocol . '://' . $host . $stringPort, $filePath);

Answer 3

The code below is well commented:

function pathToURL($path) {
  //Replace backslashes to slashes if exists, because no URL use backslashes
  $path = str_replace("\\", "/", realpath($path));

  //if the $path does not contain the document root in it, then it is not reachable
  $pos = strpos($path, $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']);
  if ($pos === false) return false;

  //just cut the DOCUMENT_ROOT part of the $path
  return substr($path, strlen($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']));
  //Note: usually /images is the same with http://somedomain.com/images,
  //      So let's not bother adding domain name here.
}
echo pathToURL('some/path/on/public/html');

Answer 4

I've used this and worked with me:

$file_path=str_replace('\\','/',__file__);
$file_path=str_replace($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'],'',$file_path);
$path='http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].'/'.$file_path;

And if you need the directory name in url format add this line:

define('URL_DIR',dirname($path));

Answer 5

More accurate way (including host port) would be to use this

function path2url($file, $Protocol='http://') {
    return $Protocol.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].str_replace($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], '', $file);
}