[RFC|Merged] Resuming for attachments / HTTP range support

[bantu]

Proposal
Inspired by: viewtopic.php?p=209196#p209196 I suggest to implement support for HTTP range requests (RFC 2616 Section 14.35) in download/file.php

Why?

• Faster downloads when a download of a big file has been interrupted.
• Faster downloads when a download via a slow connection has been interrupted.
• Sending parts of a file instead of the whole file decreases traffic.

Discussion

• I wonder why we do not already support this as the implementation doesn't seem to be too complicated.
• Patch is minimally-invasive and could also go into 3.0.x.

Implementation / Patch
Work in progress is at http://github.com/bantu/phpbb3/compare/ ... icket/9627

Tracker
Related ticket: http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-9627

References
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc ... l#sec14.35
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fread.php#84115

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

Looks good to me, but I don't see any compelling reason to put it in 3.0.x.

I'd suspect it was not implemented originally because most boards would not be attaching very large files, and range support generally only gives a gain on large files.

[Arman_Ajn]

Some countries still use dial up connection ! in my own country for instance 90% of internet users are using dial up 56Kbps and just 10% of them use ADSL! so the resume capability is very necessary for them!
i think there are still locations with poor internet speed ...
they really need resume support !

[keith10456]

Some countries still use dial up connection ! in my own country for instance 90% of internet users are using dial up 56Kbps and just 10% of them use ADSL! so the resume capability is very necessary for them!
i think there are still locations with poor internet speed ...
they really need resume support !

I didn't see the need for this until the above point was made. Considering phpBB is global then this feature should definitely be added.

[Meis2M]

Tnx bantu for ur work.
this tools very useful.

[naderman]

Indeed lets go for this, but I agree with josh that this is for 3.1, not 3.0.

[bantu]

Rebased commit to be on develop instead of develop-olympus.
New link: http://github.com/bantu/phpbb3/compare/ ... icket/9627

[bantu]

I assume the download counter is not supposed to be updated when a file is delivered partially. This would have to be adjusted as well.

[bantu]

Okay, I've added 4 more commits to the branch. The download counter is no longer incremented when a file is requested partially.

This has to be tested with various browsers, I only tested this with wget on the command line so far.

But otherwise I'd say this is ready for integration.

For the lazy folks: The branch is still at http://github.com/bantu/phpbb3/compare/ ... icket/9627

[bantu]

I have split off the discussion about "direct downloads" because the ability to resume an attachment download is not always given[0] with the proposed patch. Thus the discussion is not directly related to this topic.

New topic is at viewtopic.php?f=84&t=33495#p211170

[0] viewtopic.php?p=211197#p211197