Daily Dilbert - Page 2
Save The Image Locally
The first step we're going to take is to save the file locally on our system. Don't worry, this won't consume an infinite amount of space, since the image we'll be writing will be named the same thing every time. Pretty cool, huh?
Here's the code, commented for your enjoyment:
<?php
// Define the URL we'll be pulling from
$URL = "http://www.dilbert.com/";
// Grab the full contents of the web page, 8192 bytes at a time until done
$file = fopen("$URL", "r");
$r = "";
do {
$data = fread($file, 8192);
if (strlen($data) == 0) {
break;
}
$r .= $data;
} while (true);
// Define a Start & End location for the regular expression
$Start = '<IMG SRC="/comics/dilbert/archive/images/';
$End = '" ALT="Today\'s Comic" BORDER="0">';
// Grab the text between the Start & End location (ie. The picture name)
$stuff = eregi("$Start(.*)$End", $r, $content);
$todaysDilbert = $content[1];
echo $todaysDilbert; // this will echo something like "dilbert2004034066713.gif"
// Open a socket to www.dilbert.com so we can download data from port 80 (the web server)
if($fi=fsockopen("www.dilbert.com",80))
{
// Tell it the image we want to download
// -notice the /comics/dilbert/archive/images/ since only the image name changes
fputs($fi,"GET /comics/dilbert/archive/images/".$todaysDilbert." HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n");
// Get rid of unneccessary HTTP headers the web server sends us
while(!preg_match("/^\r?\n$/",fgets($fi,1024))); //skip headers
// Define & open a file on the local system for writing
// Just switch the path /www/vhosts/mydomain.com/htdocs/images to wherever you want
// the Dilbert image stored.
if($fo=fopen("/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/htdocs/images/dilbert.jpg","w")){
// Grab the dilbert picture 65535 bytes at a time until done
while(!feof($fi))
{
// Write the image data to our local file
fwrite($fo,fread($fi,65535));
}
// Close the local file
fclose($fo);
}
// Close the connection with dilbert.com
fclose($fi);
}
?>
We're almost done! Now, AS-IS the script is still hitting up dilbert.com like Jenna Jameson on prom night. The only difference is, we've saved the file locally and could just have this PHP script run in a CRON job once a day to update this image. But what if we want it to be more (you guessed it) dynamic? How about we only download the new Dilbert image if someone accesses the page we're displaying it on?
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Comments:
| An excellent article |
| Posted 03/29/05 10:56PM by Anonymous Techdoser |
| Possible error in the code on the last page - at the top, shouldn't the "else{$update = 1;" be anything but 1, since that is the setting to update? |
| Oddly written |
| Posted 03/30/05 5:53PM by AceBHound |
| I think that part of the code is just written oddly. It's actually saying "If the image exists, check the date & if the time of the file is old, grab the image again. If the image does not exist, grab the image." |
| Trying to implement this on another cartoon site f |
| Posted 08/14/05 11:00PM by wolfdogg |
|
I'm getting a blank image to pull when trying to do this on Calvin and Hobbes site. Can anyone figure out what might be wrong? The concept seems simple enough, but it won't pull. My code: |
| See code at http://www.bestof417.com/calvin.php |
| Posted 08/14/05 11:01PM by wolfdogg |
|
View source of my code at: http://www.bestof417.com/calvin.php Thx! Jeff |
| re: "An excellent article" and "Oddly written" com |
| Posted 11/14/05 4:43PM by Anonymous Techdoser |
|
It looks correct. Just watch the curly braces. if (file_exists($filename)) { $filedate = date ("Y-m-d", filemtime($filename)); $todaysdate = date("Y-m-d", time()); if($filedate != $todaysdate) { $update = 1; } } else { $update = 1; } |
| Good one |
| Posted 10/24/07 7:11PM by Anonymous Techdoser |
| Good work, I was actually looking for something like this. in fact, didn't wanna spend time on that. thank you so much. |
| New Regex. |
| Posted 06/01/08 10:14AM by Anonymous Techdoser |
|
The Regular expression had to be changed to reflect the new page with flash. // Define a Start & End location for the regular expression $Start = ''; |