how to show the "File download" box instead of printing out

[jiehuang001]

I have successfully used the following code to print a text file from an Oracle blob field to the screen. How should I change this code so that the "File download" window will pop up instead.

-----------code to print a text file out-----------------
<?php
$conn = OCILogon("scott", "tiger", "Daluko");
$stmt = OCIParse($conn, "select file_content from lexicon_files where id=2");

OCIExecute($stmt);
OCIFetchInto($stmt, &$blob);
echo $blob[0]->load();

OCIFreeStatement($stmt);
OCILogoff($conn);

?>

[Shagin]

Using the Header function you can tell the browser to prompt the download window by setting:

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=download.txt");

where filename is whatever you want the file name to be.
Also be sure to set the content type with

header("Content-Type: text/plain");

Make sure you do this before you output any text, because once text is outputted, the header is sent, and you can't change it anymore.

and also check the link for anything i might be missing.

[Sxooter]

Shagin, that doesn't work for me.

I have to use a content-type setting of something like application/octet-stream or undefined/undefined to get it to initiate download from mozilla on Linux.

[Shagin]

Ok cool, good to know. I wonder why that is though. So would application/octet-stream be univeral to all browsers?

[Sxooter]

Yeah, I see it all the time in my email, when it isn't sure what it is, that what it is. :-)

[csn]

In phpmyadmin's code, they use application/octetstream for IE and Opera, and application/octet-stream for all other browsers. It also further differentiates headers sent according to browser as follows:

    if (PMA_USR_BROWSER_AGENT == 'IE') {
        header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $filename . '.' . $ext . '"');
        header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
        header('Pragma: public');
    } else {
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '.' . $ext . '"');
        header('Pragma: no-cache');
    }

I remember getting downloads in my own code to work with various browsers to be somewhat quirky.

[Sxooter]

Well, what's supposed to happen is that when you supply a browser with a type it doesn't know, it should prompt the user to download it.

I think the broken behaviour that makes this not work right is in IE, which, until recently, would basically first to check to see if it supported that mime type, and if it didn't would default to interpreting what it was by looking at the extension.

Basically, you should be able to make a content-type of utter/garbage and it should offer to download it. But some browsers apparently freak out when they see a type they don't know.

[tsinka]

Hi,

the content type that worked for us with all browsers we tested so far was application/force-download but there might still remain some browsers that will not interpret that one correctly 🙁

I read some posts about not using application/force-download because this might be a security problem. So far all browsers we tested popped up the save dialog so it is still up to the users to decide if they want to download the file or not 🙂