convert download link to perform action and download

bigpikture

I have a web page which has hyperlinks to files which simply download
a file.

Does someone have a quik tip on how to convert the behavior such that
upon clicking the link, the php code could invoke a write record (to log that
the file has been downloaded) then download the file.

I'd prefer that the behavior would appear as it does without the write record
action so the user does not perceive a page flip, but I understand I may not
be able to avoid that.

Thanks in advance 😃

jburfield

I'm not sure what your URL looks like, but if it is something like this:

http://www.yourserver.com/page.php?file=filename

Then you could just add this to the end of it:

&a=1

(or whatever you want really)

Then, on page.php, you could add a quick 'if' statement...

if($_GET["a"] == 1)
{
log the download
header("Location:http://www.yourserver.com/page.php?file=filename);
}

/ put other code here, to decide what file to download /

You still get the page flip, but it's back at the same page and it's fairly subtle.

-- Jason

bigpikture

Thanks for the reply.

I am not currently using a mechanism like you mention

ie. http://www.yourserver.com/page.php?file=filename

But I am willing to do that. I am currently just having a link
like ...

<a href = "./downloadfiles/thefiletodownload">click to download</a>

which just invokes apache or whatever webserver to send the file.

How would I set up the page.php?file=filename

method?

tha_mink

OR>>

you could just read your apache logs or use something like webalizer.:p

bigpikture

Thanks but I'm still interested in how to invoke a filedownload within
the php script so that I can write a record logging the download AND
perform the download ...

Help!

tha_mink

header("Content-Type: text/plain");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=filename.txt");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");

That will force the download...then you can fopen the file you would like to use for logging or open a connection to a database and add your logging info.

tha_mink