PHP Verify that the file opens before renaming

Question

I have a cleanup script that move XLS files from one place to another. For this process of moving the file, I used the rename function. This script is working fine. but when the xls file is open, when I try to move this xls, I get an error that simply says “Cannot rename sample.xls”. But I would like to add features like: check that XLS is open before the rename function starts.

I believe this is a call to the flock function, but this only applies to the TXT file.

How to check the .xls file opens before calling the rename function.

Answer 1

One simple thing you can try is to use flock to get an exclusive file lock and if it doesn’t work, you will know that the file is being used:

 <?php $fp = fopen('c:/your_file.xlsx', 'r+'); if(!flock($fp, LOCK_EX)) { echo 'File is being used...'; exit(-1); } else { fclose($fp); // rename(...); } 

An alternative would be to check for the existence of a lock file. Normally excel creates when a file is used:

 <?php $file = 'c:/testfile.xlsx'; $lock = 'c:/~$testfile.xlsx'; if (file_exists($lock)) { echo "Excel $file is locked."; } else { echo "Excel $file is free."; } 

The hidden file usually has a name with the prefix ~$ , as for old excel files, which, it seems to me, in 2003 and older, lock files are stored in the temp folder with a random name like ~DF7B32A4D388B5854C.TMP , so it would be pretty hard to find from .

Answer 2

You must use flock() . This puts the flag in the file so that other scripts are informed that the file is being used. The flag is turned off either intentionally using fclose , or implicitly at the end of the script.

Answer 3

Use file locking, for example:

 flock($file,LOCK_EX); 

see this