如何提前删除上传的文件

Question

So the user is inserting a new article and he is also uploading by ajax files, each of those uploaded files are saved in mysql table and each file is binded to the current NOT YET added article, if the user adds the article then is all good, but what if he leaves the page or closes the browser, those files are uploaded, but the article_id that they are binded doesn't exist, and the question is how can I delete those files IF the user leaves the page or something else will happen, because I don't want to collect trash in the table that isn't used, any ideas?

Answer 1

Make a cron job executing a small script doing that cleanup once a day. Usually such things are done during the second half of the night. Take care that the process is started such that it has sufficient rights to write the file system.

If you do not have access to the system in form of a shell to allow that you can do a 'poor mans cron': call some php file by using wget to trigger the file via a request to the http server. Works the same in the end and you can trigger the process from somewhere else.