Question

I have a short PHP program that loads an XML file (test02.xml) and then attempts to save it in another file.

The program is:

<?php
//The next three lines are needed to open a file for writing on the server I use.

$stream_options = array('ftp' => array('overwrite' => TRUE));
$stream_context = stream_context_create($stream_options);
$fxml = fopen("ftp://userid:[e-mail]/public_html/programs/test03.xml","w",0,$stream_context);

//The next three lines create a new DOMDocument, load the input file, "test02.xml"  
//and attempt to save the loaded file in the output file "test03.xml"

$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->load("test02.xml");
$doc->save("test03.xml");
?>

The file test03.xml opens properly and is created if it does not exist. However, there is no output in it. The loaded file, test02.xml, is non-empty and well formed XML. I have loaded and read it successfully with other PHP programs.

When I run the above program, I get the message:

Warning: DOMDocument::save(test03.xml) [domdocument.save]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/yurow/wwwroot/yurowdesigns.com/programs/xmlTest.php on line 8.

I have checked the syntax of the ‘save’ command at:

phpbuilder.com/manual/en/function.dom-domdocument-save.php

and it appears to be correct. Any idea what is causing this???

Answer 1

The user trying to create the file is not “yurow” (a user who likely has permission to create the file). Rather it’s a user such as “apache” or “httpd”. Often, systems are set up to disallow the apache/httpd user from creating files inside the web root. This is done for security purposes and I would not recommend trying to circumvent it by giving apache/httpd write access to your webroot. Instead, you could create the document somewhere inside /home/yurow (just not inside /home/yurow/wwwroot). An example might be: /home/yurow/xmldata/test02.xml. You may need to adjust permissions on this directory to allow the apache/httpd user to write to it.