php - file_put_contents worked perfectly until moved from widget to plugin

I successfully built a WordPress widget that, when a page is refreshed, downloads .csv files via their URLs found in a JSON file. The widget works perfectly; each time the page is refreshed, the .csv files are downloaded from their URLs in the JSON.

Now I am taking the code from the widget and pasting it into a plugin that does the same thing each day via a cron job. Unfortunately, the exact same code now doesn't work when triggered by the cron job.

While I can't post all the code due to security reasons, here's the excerpt where I'm encountering the bug.

/* ISOLATE CSV LINK PULLED FROM JSON */
            $phpObj = json_decode($response);
            if (json_last_error() !== 0) {
                echo json_last_error_msg();
            } else {
                print_r($phpObj, true);
                $csvURL = $phpObj->result->location;
            }

            /* DOWNLOAD CSV FILE */

            $file_name = "filteredList" . $listLabelArray[$i] . ".csv";

            $info = pathinfo($file_name);

            if ($info["extension"] == "csv") {
                if(file_put_contents( "wp-content/plugins/finder-autoupdate/" . $file_name,
                    file_get_contents($csvURL))) {
                    echo nl2br($file_name ." downloaded successfully!\n");
                }
                else {
                    echo "File download failed.";
                }
            }
            else echo "Sorry, that's not a csv file";
Copy code

Here's the debug console:

10-Jun-2021 16:59:39 UTC] PHP Warning:  file_put_contents(wp-content/plugins/finder-autoupdate /filteredListVA0002019921.csv):
failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /sites/[REDACTED].com/files/wp-
content/plugins/finder-autoupdate/finder-autoupdate.php on line 135
Copy code

After looking into this, shouldn't the path listed in the debug console NOT include finder-autoupdate.php, as that's the plugin's php file? The path should instead just placefilteredListVA0002019921.csv in the folder/sites/[REDACTED].com/files/wp-content/plugins/finder-autoupdate/

Didn't find the answer?

Our community is visited by hundreds of web development professionals every day. Ask your question and get a quick answer for free.