problem with file downloads

[Anon]

Hi,

I am adding a feature to my website that will
allow people to download and install and executable file...myfile.exe. This is very simple to do by just creating a link directly to the file. However this file is located outside of the location of the web server. It can be referenced without a problem in PHP.

I have attempted to use the following technique:

- page with list of downloads
  (download_list.php) has link to 
  another script which actually does
  the download:

 ...
 <A HREF="<?php echo($file_location); ?>download.php?file=myfile.exe">DOWNLOAD</A>
 ...

- download page (download.php) forces
  the appropriate header to be sent
  along with the executable file. It
  contains the following code ($filepath
  is defined in a header otherwise this
  is the only code):

<?php
  header("Content-Type: application/download\n");
  header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$file\"\n");
  header("Pragma: no-cache\n");
  header("Expires: 0\n");
  $fn=fopen("$filepath.$file" , "r");
  fpassthru($fn);
?>

Here is what happens when you open the link running on win2000 client w/IE 5.5)...

1. File download dialog appears....wants to save "download_list.php" which is the originating script even though I have defined the name differently with $file.
2. Click on OK with save checked and it saves the originating page link....
3. Click on OK with open checked and another file xfer dialog appears...it wants to save
   "download.php?myfile.exe"
4. Click on OK on the second dialog with save checked and it actually saves the file... myfile.exe

So it appears that it is initiating 2 transfers and the filenames shown as the target are not what I explicitly specified.

Can anyone help with this?

Thanks,
Mark Johnson
[e-mail]

[terje-s]

Well, not that its likely to be a good solution, but as a quick hack, you can add /myfile.exe to the URL. I've used this for similar problems when downloading CSV files generated on the fly from DB.

e.g.

<a href="http://server.com/script.php?file=somefile.exe/myfile.exe">

will execute script.php?file=somefile, yet IE/NS will think its accessing myfile.exe (at least on my apache, might be different on yours =b)