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File: pntemp.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="pnTemp" lang="en-US"
         status="draft">
  <!-- $Id: pntemp.xml 18162 2006-03-16 00:20:51Z drak $ -->

  <chapterinfo>
    <authorgroup>
      <author>
        <firstname>Jörg</firstname>

        <surname>Napp</surname>

        <affiliation>
          <jobtitle>Developer</jobtitle>

          <orgname>PostNuke</orgname>
        </affiliation>
      </author>
    </authorgroup>


    <date>$Date: 2006-03-16 00:20:51 +0000 (Thu, 16 Mar 2006) $</date>

    <revhistory>
      <revision>
        <revnumber>0.3</revnumber>

        <date>28. Feb 2004</date>

        <revdescription>
          <para>DocBook split for better re-use</para>
        </revdescription>
      </revision>

      <revision>
        <revnumber>0.2</revnumber>

        <date>07. October 2003</date>

        <revdescription>
          <para>corrections and added IDs to tags</para>
        </revdescription>
      </revision>

      <revision>
        <revnumber>0.1</revnumber>

        <date>15. September 2003</date>

        <revdescription>
          <para>Initial version</para>
        </revdescription>
      </revision>
    </revhistory>

    <keywordset>
      <keyword>pnTemp</keyword>
    </keywordset>
  </chapterinfo>

  <title>The PostNuke temp directory (<filename>pnTemp</filename>)</title>

  <section id="pntemp.introduction">
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>The PostNuke temp directory has been introduced for module
    developers to store temporary files in a central writable file system
    point.</para>
  </section>

  <section id="pntemp.uses">
    <title>Uses</title>

    <section id="pntemp.uses.obtaining">
      <title>Obtaining the temp path</title>

      <para>A module developer can obtain the path to the temp directory using
      <command>pnConfigGetVar('<replaceable>temp</replaceable>')</command>.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="pntemp.uses.filenames">
      <title>File names</title>

      <para>Developers should use their module name as a suffix to file names
      stored in the temp directory to avoid name conflicts. The foobar module
      shuld name its temporary files <filename>foobar_temp1</filename>,
      <filename>foobar_temp2</filename> a.s.o.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="pntemp.uses.subdirs">
      <title>Using Subdirectories</title>

      <para>A module developer may use a subdirectory of the temp directory
      for his purposes. In this case, the module developer has to take care
      for this subdirectory to be created and deleted on module initialization
      or deletion time. The naming conventions stated above appliy to
      directory names as well.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="pntemp.uses.deletion">
      <title>Automatic deletion</title>

      <para>In short, automatic deletion or cleanup will not and must not take
      place.</para>

      <para>There is no automatic cleanup machanism for the temp directory, so
      the developer needs to take care that the files he creates are deleted
      again. On the other hand, the system expects no automatic cleanup to
      run, so that files can be stored over a certain amount of time.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="pntemp.uses.webaccess">
      <title>Web access to files</title>

      <para>Files stored in the temp directory are not accessible via http.
      Thus, this is not the place to store files like images, documents or
      such that you would like to be available via http.</para>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section id="pntemp.implementation">
    <title>Implementation</title>

    <para>At installation time, the PostNuke temp directory is located at
    <filename><replaceable>(PostNuke Root)</replaceable>/pnTemp</filename>.
    The webmaster installing PostNuke needs to make this directory writable by
    the web server, typically by <command>chmod</command>ding it (and its
    subdirectories) to 777.</para>

    <para>The place of the temp directory can be changed in the file
    <filename>config.php</filename>. Since if we use adodb query caching this
    temp directory will need to be known before we have access to our db so a
    config var is not appropriate here.</para>

    <para>For security reasons, webmasters are strongly encouraged to move the
    temp directory outside the web root.</para>

    <para>To avoid http access to the temp directory, there is a apache styte
    <filename>.htaccess</filename> included in the <filename>pnTemp</filename>
    directory prohibiting this access.</para>
  </section>
</chapter>