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How to use blob storage (object storage) from PHP \| Microsoft Docs	Store unstructured data in the cloud with Azure Blob storage (object storage).	php	storage	mmacy	timlt	tysonn	1af56b59-b3f0-4b46-8441-aab463ae088e	storage	storage	na	PHP	article	12/08/2016	marsma

How to use blob storage from PHP

[!INCLUDE storage-selector-blob-include]

[!INCLUDE storage-try-azure-tools-queues]

Overview

Azure Blob storage is a service that stores unstructured data in the cloud as objects/blobs. Blob storage can store any type of text or binary data, such as a document, media file, or application installer. Blob storage is also referred to as object storage.

This guide shows you how to perform common scenarios using the Azure blob service. The samples are written in PHP and use the Azure SDK for PHP. The scenarios covered include uploading, listing, downloading, and deleting blobs. For more information on blobs, see the Next steps section.

[!INCLUDE storage-blob-concepts-include]

[!INCLUDE storage-create-account-include]

Create a PHP application

The only requirement for creating a PHP application that accesses the Azure blob service is the referencing of classes in the Azure SDK for PHP from within your code. You can use any development tools to create your application, including Notepad.

In this guide, you use service features, which can be called within a PHP application locally or in code running within an Azure web role, worker role, or website.

Get the Azure Client Libraries

[!INCLUDE get-client-libraries]

Configure your application to access the blob service

To use the Azure blob service APIs, you need to:

Reference the autoloader file using the require_once statement, and
Reference any classes you might use.

The following example shows how to include the autoloader file and reference the ServicesBuilder class.

Note

The examples in this article assume you have installed the PHP Client Libraries for Azure via Composer. If you installed the libraries manually, you need to reference the WindowsAzure.php autoloader file.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;

In the examples below, the require_once statement will be shown always, but only the classes necessary for the example to execute are referenced.

Set up an Azure storage connection

To instantiate an Azure blob service client, you must first have a valid connection string. The format for the blob service connection string is:

For accessing a live service:

DefaultEndpointsProtocol=[http|https];AccountName=[yourAccount];AccountKey=[yourKey]

For accessing the storage emulator:

UseDevelopmentStorage=true

To create any Azure service client, you need to use the ServicesBuilder class. You can:

Pass the connection string directly to it or
Use the CloudConfigurationManager (CCM) to check multiple external sources for the connection string:
- By default, it comes with support for one external source - environmental variables.
- You can add new sources by extending the ConnectionStringSource class.

For the examples outlined here, the connection string will be passed directly.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;

$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);

Create a container

[!INCLUDE storage-container-naming-rules-include]

A BlobRestProxy object lets you create a blob container with the createContainer method. When creating a container, you can set options on the container, but doing so is not required. (The example below shows how to set the container access control list (ACL) and container metadata.)

require_once 'vendor\autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\Models\CreateContainerOptions;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\Models\PublicAccessType;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);


// OPTIONAL: Set public access policy and metadata.
// Create container options object.
$createContainerOptions = new CreateContainerOptions();

// Set public access policy. Possible values are
// PublicAccessType::CONTAINER_AND_BLOBS and PublicAccessType::BLOBS_ONLY.
// CONTAINER_AND_BLOBS:
// Specifies full public read access for container and blob data.
// proxys can enumerate blobs within the container via anonymous
// request, but cannot enumerate containers within the storage account.
//
// BLOBS_ONLY:
// Specifies public read access for blobs. Blob data within this
// container can be read via anonymous request, but container data is not
// available. proxys cannot enumerate blobs within the container via
// anonymous request.
// If this value is not specified in the request, container data is
// private to the account owner.
$createContainerOptions->setPublicAccess(PublicAccessType::CONTAINER_AND_BLOBS);

// Set container metadata.
$createContainerOptions->addMetaData("key1", "value1");
$createContainerOptions->addMetaData("key2", "value2");

try    {
    // Create container.
    $blobRestProxy->createContainer("mycontainer", $createContainerOptions);
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Calling setPublicAccess(PublicAccessType::CONTAINER_AND_BLOBS) makes the container and blob data accessible via anonymous requests. Calling setPublicAccess(PublicAccessType::BLOBS_ONLY) makes only blob data accessible via anonymous requests. For more information about container ACLs, see Set container ACL (REST API).

For more information about Blob service error codes, see Blob Service Error Codes.

Upload a blob into a container

To upload a file as a blob, use the BlobRestProxy->createBlockBlob method. This operation creates the blob if it doesn't exist, or overwrites it if it does. The code example below assumes that the container has already been created and uses fopen to open the file as a stream.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);


$content = fopen("c:\myfile.txt", "r");
$blob_name = "myblob";

try    {
    //Upload blob
    $blobRestProxy->createBlockBlob("mycontainer", $blob_name, $content);
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Note that the previous sample uploads a blob as a stream. However, a blob can also be uploaded as a string using, for example, the file_get_contents function. To do this using the previous sample, change $content = fopen("c:\myfile.txt", "r"); to $content = file_get_contents("c:\myfile.txt");.

List the blobs in a container

To list the blobs in a container, use the BlobRestProxy->listBlobs method with a foreach loop to loop through the result. The following code displays the name of each blob as output in a container and displays its URI to the browser.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);


try    {
    // List blobs.
    $blob_list = $blobRestProxy->listBlobs("mycontainer");
    $blobs = $blob_list->getBlobs();

    foreach($blobs as $blob)
    {
        echo $blob->getName().": ".$blob->getUrl()."<br />";
    }
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Download a blob

To download a blob, call the BlobRestProxy->getBlob method, then call the getContentStream method on the resulting GetBlobResult object.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);


try    {
    // Get blob.
    $blob = $blobRestProxy->getBlob("mycontainer", "myblob");
    fpassthru($blob->getContentStream());
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Note that the example above gets a blob as a stream resource (the default behavior). However, you can use the stream_get_contents function to convert the returned stream to a string.

Delete a blob

To delete a blob, pass the container name and blob name to BlobRestProxy->deleteBlob.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);


try    {
    // Delete blob.
    $blobRestProxy->deleteBlob("mycontainer", "myblob");
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Delete a blob container

Finally, to delete a blob container, pass the container name to BlobRestProxy->deleteContainer.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WindowsAzure\Common\ServicesBuilder;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\ServiceException;

// Create blob REST proxy.
$blobRestProxy = ServicesBuilder::getInstance()->createBlobService($connectionString);

try    {
    // Delete container.
    $blobRestProxy->deleteContainer("mycontainer");
}
catch(ServiceException $e){
    // Handle exception based on error codes and messages.
    // Error codes and messages are here:
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dd179439.aspx
    $code = $e->getCode();
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo $code.": ".$error_message."<br />";
}

Next steps

Now that you've learned the basics of the Azure blob service, follow these links to learn about more complex storage tasks.

Visit the Azure Storage team blog
See the PHP block blob example.
See the PHP page blob example.
Transfer data with the AzCopy Command-Line Utility

For more information, see also the PHP Developer Center.

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storage-php-how-to-use-blobs.md

storage-php-how-to-use-blobs.md

How to use blob storage from PHP

Overview

Create a PHP application

Get the Azure Client Libraries

Configure your application to access the blob service

Set up an Azure storage connection

Create a container

Upload a blob into a container

List the blobs in a container

Download a blob

Delete a blob

Delete a blob container

Next steps

Files

storage-php-how-to-use-blobs.md

Latest commit

History

storage-php-how-to-use-blobs.md

File metadata and controls

How to use blob storage from PHP

Overview

Create a PHP application

Get the Azure Client Libraries

Configure your application to access the blob service

Set up an Azure storage connection

Create a container

Upload a blob into a container

List the blobs in a container

Download a blob

Delete a blob

Delete a blob container

Next steps