file download via http header

Anon

I currently have a PHP script which uses HTTP headers to force a "file save as" box to pop up in a browser. The script then reads the file and sends the file to the browser. For example:

header ( "Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header ( "Content-Length: ".filesize($file));
header ( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file");

readfile($file);

Everything appears to work fine except when I use SSL and IE 5.5. When I request the download script via "https" I get the following error in IE 5.5 (works fine via http):

"Internet Explorer cannot download scriptname.php from www.domain.com"
"The file could not be written to the cache"

Any suggestions on how to work around or resolve this problem?

Anon

I'm having the same annoying problem. I tried fiddling with the "advanced" option in IE to not save encrypted pages to the cache, but that didn't change squat. If you've come across a solution I'd love to hear it.

Thanks.

giwarden

Anon

Hello,

After some more fiddling, I found a scenerio that works.

DO NOT INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING DIRECTIVE:
header("Pragma: no-cache");

This causes the IE 5+ with SSL download to die everytime.

Good luck!

Anon

I'm finding that neither of the following headers may be used:

header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Pragma: no-cache");

I'm having a button to download dynamically generated images via a php script - note that this header only causes problems when present in the referring html page, not in the target itself (ie. you can use these headers in the target download file)

rob.

Anon

Interesting, so you're suggesting that I can solve my IE + SSL + dynamically read PDF display dilemma by putting the header info in the front of the PDF itself? I'm worried this will confuse IE or netscape and make the PDF invalid, but I should give it a try I guess as I haven't found a good solution yet to this problem (I've just temporarily abandoned SSL in my current implementation)... Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Graham

Anon

I thing the best solution is to save the file on the server's filesystem and only to save the url in the db.
There are many browsers incompatibilities. Following headers are working on IE 5.0 but not on 5.5 or netscape 6.0:

<?php

Read a image file from tb_binary_data and show it

MYSQL_CONNECT("localhost", "u","p");
mysql_select_db("db");

$query = "SELECT * FROM tb_binary_data WHERE binary_data_id=$id";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$file=mysql_fetch_array($result);

$data = $file["bin_data"];
$name = $file["filename"];
$size = $file["filesize"];
$type = $file["filetype"];

header("Content-type:$type");
header("Content-length:$size");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$name\"");
header("Content-Description😛HP Generated Data");
echo $data;

Anon

Hi.

I think that the problem is the header. Please see:

http://www.phpbuilder.com/mail/php-general/2000081/1036.php

bye

Pablo Garcia wrote:

<?php

Read a image file from tb_binary_data and show it

MYSQL_CONNECT("localhost", "u","p");
mysql_select_db("db");

$query = "SELECT * FROM tb_binary_data WHERE binary_data_id=$id";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$file=mysql_fetch_array($result);

$data = $file["bin_data"];
$name = $file["filename"];
$size = $file["filesize"];
$type = $file["filetype"];

header("Content-type:$type");
header("Content-length:$size");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$name\"");
header("Content-Description😛HP Generated Data");
echo $data;