Starting download automatically!!!

[Anon]

Hi,

I have the following problem:

Users should be able to download files (one by one) through an HTML form. From a pop-up menu they should select the file they want to download. Then they should fill out a form (on the very same page) with their names, e-mails, etc. And when they push the Submit button, the download of the selected file (stored in $file) should automatically start. But how the hell can I do that?

Any help would be appreciated. And thanks for your patience if this is a dumb problem.

Thanks,

Akos David, Hungary

[Anon]

1. Do an exec(ls) on the directory where you store the files. Store file names in an array and use this array to populate a drop down menu on the form.

2. Set the <SELECT> name for the drop down menu to "filename"

3. When the user presses submit, $filename is now equal to the option selected from the drop down menu i.e. a real filename.

As for automatically starting a download from here on , i dont know.

Can anyone else fill in the gap here? I'd be interested to know too!

[jacobee]

Sumbit the form with your $file variable to the php script, check for validty of the submitted data, then something like the following should do the trick:

header("Location: /path/to/file/$file");

From a quick test -> if a non-binary file(plain text) is specified the browser will display the contents of the file in the browser window, whereas if the file in question is binary (tarball, executable, etc.) in nature the user will be presented with the standard download/open file dialog box (in IE 5.0 anyway). Hope this helps