Wouldn’t it be great if you could use php and curl to download multiple files simultaneously using built-in curl functions? You can!

php code example

This code will download all the files listed in the $urls array to the folder specified by the $saveto variable.

<?php
 
$urls=array(
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/12-lessons-for-those-afraid-of-css.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/27-request-methods-for-use-with-apache-and-rewritecond-and-htaccess.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/301-redirect-with-mod_rewrite-or-redirectmatch.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/404-errorpages.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/503-service-temporarily-unavailable.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/adsense-robots.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/alexa-toolbar-firefox.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/allowing-access-from-1-static-ip-and-deny-the-rest.mp3',
'http://f.askapache.com/mp3/apache-authentication-in-htaccess.mp3');
 
$save_to='/home/user/htdocs/mp3/';
 
$mh = curl_multi_init();
foreach ($urls as $i => $url) {
    $g=$save_to.basename($url);
    if(!is_file($g)){
        $conn[$i]=curl_init($url);
        $fp[$i]=fopen ($g, "w");
        curl_setopt ($conn[$i], CURLOPT_FILE, $fp[$i]);
        curl_setopt ($conn[$i], CURLOPT_HEADER ,0);
        curl_setopt($conn[$i],CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,60);
        curl_multi_add_handle ($mh,$conn[$i]);
    }
}
do {
    $n=curl_multi_exec($mh,$active);
}
while ($active);
foreach ($urls as $i => $url) {
    curl_multi_remove_handle($mh,$conn[$i]);
    curl_close($conn[$i]);
    fclose ($fp[$i]);
}
curl_multi_close($mh);
?>

Curl Multi Functions

curl_multi_init
Returns a new cURL multi handle
curl_multi_add_handle
Add a normal cURL handle to a cURL multi handle
curl_multi_exec
Run the sub-connections of the current cURL handle
curl_multi_close
Close a set of cURL handles
curl_multi_getcontent
Return the content of a cURL handle if CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER is set
curl_multi_info_read
Get information about the current transfers
curl_multi_select
Get all the sockets associated with the cURL extension, which can then be “selected”
curl_multi_remove_handle
Remove a multi handle from a set of cURL handles

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