CHMOD back and forth in same script?

[PHPstarter]

Hiya.

I have a file download script which chmods the file permissions to read/downloadable when used.

However I have tried to make it so that the same script will chmod the file permissions back to not readable again after the download is initiated, but it does not work.

The chmod works, it's just that I cant make the last chmod to wait until the download has initiated.
Sleep doesnt help because it seems as if that delays the whole script rather than the codes below the string.

chmod("$fDirr", 0777);
 
echo "<meta http-equiv='Refresh' content='1;url=files/$filename'> ";
 
chmod("$fDirr", 0600);
 

So how can I solve this? :)

[Markus]

Well, the issue is that the PHP is interpreted prior to the HTML. Ergo, the last chmod() is run before that output reaches the browser.

My suggestion, instead, is to *not* give a user access to the files (and not mess around with the file permissions). but to instead send the file for download with PHP. Therefore, only the Apache/PHP user needs read permissions on the file.

See Part 4 to Atli's article here.

Mark.