PHP unable to unlink after readfile()

[jlm699]

On my site I have a file that I generate in /var/tmp so that the user can download it. The script is as follows:

$file_path = '/var/tmp/up2606.csv';
 
header('Cache-Control: public, must-revalidate');
header('Pragma: hack');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Length: '.(string)(filesize($file_path)));
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\n');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="recv_data.csv"');
readfile($file_path);
unlink($file_path);
?>
 

So basically what I want to do is delete the file as soon as the user downloads it. (Earlier in the script the file is generated specifically for the user's session).
The script completely ignores the unlink though, as my /var/tmp directory still has all the files that are generated... the funny thing is I'm not getting any errors, so I'm not quite sure how to go about solving this one?

[jlm699]

The problem has to be the fact that the user is dl'ing the file. The script executes and probly gives a hidden permission denied error somewhere. I can delete other files using this script, just not the one that's being downloaded...

The script went like this:

//same download process as before...
$fh = fopen('/var/tmp/foo.bar', 'a');
fputs($fh, 'test');
fclose($fh);
 
unlink('/var/tmp/foo.bar')
unlink($file_path)
 

foo.bar disappeared but the other file did not.

[Markus]

The file which is executing unlink() has to be in the same directory as the file being deleted :)

[jlm699]

The file which is executing unlink() has to be in the same directory as the file being deleted :)

But I can delete other files in that directory.. just not the one that gets sent to the user.

I'm thinking the only way around this will be to update to postgresql 8.2 so that I will not need to generate a temporary file... either that or make a cron job to clear the .csv files from that directory every day.