Remotely Download Google AJAX Libraries Using PHP

By  on  

I don't know how to use all of the JavaScript libraries but perusing their code is interesting. If I'm looking to code something I'll look at how each of the other libraries accomplishes the task. The problem is that you need to go out and download each one. And of course they're all on different development schedules so you'd also need to make sure to grab the latest version of the library. Instead of manually accomplishing that task, I've chosen create a script that does all of that for me.

The PHP

//settings
$dir = 'js-libs/';
$url = 'http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/documentation/index.html';

//open file
$content = get_content($url);
echo 'Retrieved page from Google.';

//parse
$regex = '/http:\/\/ajax.googleapis.com\/ajax\/libs\/.*.js/isU';

//match?
preg_match_all($regex,$content,$matches);

//make sure there are no repeated files
$js_files = array_unique($matches[0]);

//download every file and save locally
foreach($js_files as $file) {
	//download
	$content = get_content($file);
	//save
	$filename = str_replace(array('http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/','/'),array('','-'),$file);
	file_put_contents($dir.$filename,$content);
	//
	echo 'saving ',$file;
}

//function to grab content from a url
function get_content($url) {
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080311 Firefox/2.0.0.13');
	curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
	curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
	curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,5);
	$content = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);
	return $content;
}

Pow! One quick script to get you all of the popular JavaScript libraries in 10 seconds. You may not know how to use each library but it sure doesn't hurt to have them around.

Recent Features

  • By
    9 More Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos

    With Firefox OS, asm.js, and the push for browser performance improvements, canvas and WebGL technologies are opening a world of possibilities.  I featured 9 Mind-Blowing Canvas Demos and then took it up a level with 9 Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos, but I want to outdo...

  • By
    JavaScript Promise API

    While synchronous code is easier to follow and debug, async is generally better for performance and flexibility. Why "hold up the show" when you can trigger numerous requests at once and then handle them when each is ready?  Promises are becoming a big part of the JavaScript world...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    HTML5 download Attribute

    I tend to get caught up on the JavaScript side of the HTML5 revolution, and can you blame me?  HTML5 gives us awesome "big" stuff like WebSockets, Web Workers, History, Storage and little helpers like the Element classList collection.  There are, however, smaller features in...

  • By
    HTML5 Context Menus

    One of the hidden gems within the HTML5 spec is context menus. The HTML5 context menu spec allows developers to create custom context menus for given blocks within simple menu and menuitem elements. The menu information lives right within the page so...

Discussion

  1. I should note that I run this from the command line.

  2. Mohamed Jama

    Nice script David! did you redesign your site?! keep up the good work mate :)

  3. Nice reminder to think things through and do the extra mile to save time in the future.

    The url has changed in the last four years: https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/devguide. Seems people at google don’t know how to put a permanent redirect into place…

    Regards,

    pepebe

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!