Force a file to Dowload

Anon

I have a file in a webspace (say http://somewhere.com/uploads/filename.txt) and I want this file to be dowloaded if clicked on a link on a webpage. But wait you say... .txt files are handled my mime type by just about every browser available... ack.. that's my problem. I know that 99.9% of all browsers will load the data into the browser window.. but I also know that 100% of my users will want to store the files locally... If I can force the open/save dialog box to open.. then maybe I'll save my users (and myself) mucho pains....

Is there anyone on this group that does such a thing?

Thanks,

Mike

Anon

yeh, if you include the following code at the top of the txt document then it will put up a save dialog instead of displaying the text underneith it.

<?php
header ("Content-type: mime-special");
?>

//text junk goes here...

I just called the content type any old thing just so it wasn't text.

What I'd sugest doing to maintain the filenames would be to create a virtual directory on the server where anything that is accessed in it would be passed through this script first. Either that or modify each file to be a .php document, or some other type that you can have the server map to run through the php engine.

Anon

But how would I stream the document after the header?
Mike

Shaun Hawkes wrote:

yeh, if you include the following code at the top of the txt document then it will put up a save dialog instead of displaying the text underneith it.

<?php
header ("Content-type: mime-special");
?>

//text junk goes here...

I just called the content type any old thing just so it wasn't text.

Anon

if the document wasn't txt.. some will be .jpg or word documents

Mike Elliott wrote:

But how would I stream the document after the header?
Mike

Shaun Hawkes wrote:

yeh, if you include the following code at the top of the txt document then it will put up a save dialog instead of displaying the text underneith it.

<?php
header ("Content-type: mime-special");
?>

//text junk goes here...

I just called the content type any old thing just so it wasn't text.

Anon

Oh that well that can be easy, thou this methood can screw up the filenames a bit, but if thats not important then you can use it instead of the harder version.

Ok so your script takes 1 param which is the location of the file relevent to the script that is.

Exsmple:

download.php?filename=filename.jpg

This would request the document filename.jpg from the same directory as the script.

download.php?filename=../filename.jpg

This would request the document from the previous directory under the script directory.

Ok so now your script should read something like this:

<?php
if (strlen($filename)>0)
{
header("Content-type: mime-special");
include($filename);
}
?>

Now as I said this methood will actualy try to name the file whatever the script is named, that is why I sugest setting up a special virtual directory that points to this script that way it can trick the browser into thinking that the file is comming direct and not through a script and it would name it correctly.

Anon

You can preserve the filename with the second header blelow. You will have to parse out the path though. Also, octet-stream is a defined type to force a download. So the code would be as follows:

$filename_no_path = strrchr($filename,"/"); // Parse out the path

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream"); // Force Download

// Tell the browser what the filename is.
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename_no_path");

Anon

Sweet, thanks man, I knew there was a header that could do that, I used it once a couple of years back but I completely forgot what it was...

Oh and for getting the filename I'd just use the php function basename(), it returns the filename no matter what OS is being used, so \ and / are treated as equals 🙂

Anon

I am currently using exactly this method, and everything works as expected for Netscape, however for MSIE 5.5 a text file is still displayed in the browser. For any other type of file the download dialog is displayed correctly, however not for text files.

Anon

Works great!! on my main web server.. but unfortunately the one i need it to work on is an SSL enabled one that is having problems streaming the content. ACK!!!
The Content Disposition header does work great...

Is anyone attempting this on a SSL server?

Mik

Anon

Thats weird... I use IE almost exclusively and it's been working great for me, maybe send a copy of your source code in and we can have a looksee at the problem 🙂

Anon

Ehe? Weird, oh well I'm going to be implementing an SSL based server over the next month or so, I guess I'll have to keep an eye out for this.

Anon

Here it is.. pretty straight forward

<?
$filename="frame1.html";
$application="application/octet-stream";
header("Content-type: mime-special");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$fileName");
header("Content-Description: PHP3 Generated Data");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
include($filename);
?>

Shaun Hawkes wrote:

Thats weird... I use IE almost exclusively and it's been working great for me, maybe send a copy of your source code in and we can have a looksee at the problem 🙂

Anon

Hmmm well it appears that the application/octet-stream value doesn't work, the browser seems to see right through it, thou if you do as I originaly did and use an undefined mime type then it seems to function just perfectly, weird ehe... Another small error in this code as well was that you put a capital letter into you $filename variable in the header so it won't work because the compiler is caps sensitive with variables.

Here's a fixed version of the code.

<?
//$filename="frame1.html";
$mimetype="mime-special";
header("Content-type: $mimetype");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename");
header("Content-Description: PHP3 Generated Data");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
include($filename);
?>

Anon

Hi guys, hopefully someone will catch this even tho this thread is a little older.

I have a problem that seems unique to anything I can find so far on the archives here and it goes a little something like this.

I have files saved directly into a database, after being parsed into monster-sized strings 🙂 along with the files, I am saving their original filename, the mime-type and the original file size. My problems occur when I attempt to get the files back out of the database, because IE starts having problems.

I am using a separate script which i have called download.php which is supposed to select the 'file' from the database, then basically dump a few headers to say what sort of file etc that it is, then stream the contents of the file from the database. it looks like this;

#######################
<?php
include("conf/preferences.php");
include("lib/generic.php");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: no-cache");
if (!$loggedUser) {
header("Location: $PCS_home?referrer=$PHP_SELF&msg=You must be logged in to view that page.<br>Please enter a valid username and password to continue.");
}

// Get the file from the database into a standard result set
$getSQL = "SELECT * FROM Files WHERE id='$file'";
$fileResult = mysql_query($getSQL);
$theFile = mysql_fetch_array($fileResult);

// If the file is intended as a download, then tell the browser to download it
// rather than display it.
if ($download == "yes")
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . $theFile["name"] . "\"");

// Send a header telling the browser what type of file is coming and some details
header("Content-Type: " . $theFile["type"]);
header("Content-Description: PCS Database Saved File");
header("Content-Length: " . $theFile["size"] . "");

// Then pipe the file contents to the browser.
echo $theFile["contents"];

?>
#######################

This script works ok on a normal (insecure) server, except the filename still isn't passed correctly. Get this for wierd, it passes the extension of the filename (my theory is that it is effected by the mimetype) and the actual type properly, but still attempts to call the file "download" so I get things like "download.zip" and "download.doc"

My real problems occur when i transfer the script to the machine it is intended to run on which runs an SSL server (the insecure is for development). Then I get a problem because IE says it cannot find the page requested and I should try again later...

I have tried everything I can think of or find suggestions about - but to no avail, so now I am begging for help whereever I can get it! 🙂

Anon

Hi,

I tried your script. it is asking for file download. but did not show any content in file. and also do not save the file as same name of the file.

I am saving file in database.

rgds
Umesh