downloading a file from the server

[pbooker]

hello folks..

i have created a text file on the server sales.txt , which i would like to download to the client

...

// open a file to export data
// to /home/sites/www.mplaser.intranet/web/sales.txt ...

  $file = "/home/sites/site1/web/sales.txt" ;
   $open = fopen($file,"w+") ;

// write selected information to a file ..........

       fwrite($open,$sales);
          fclose($open);          

// download ??

header("Cache-control: private"); // fix for IE
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream"); 
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($file)); 
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=$file"); 

....

at present what is downloaded is a truncated version of the html page that contain the above php

can anyone offer any advice here, have taken a look at the manual and the forum but have not as yet found anything that works

many thanks
paul

[13th_seer]

I've got it to work in IE using the following -

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=sales.txt");

print($file_data);
exit();

obviously, $file_data is the raw data to be sent to the user

just make sure these header() lines are the FIRST lines to output ANY data to the client, or it won't work. even a line feed before your first <?php tag will cause php to send headers, nullifying your header() functions

for simplicity, I would make the d/l script standalone and link to it from the file writing script

good luck