Sending generated file to browser

aaronk42

So...I'm relatively new to PHP. Here's my problem:

The website I'm working on has a set of .asx files (small text files that act as pointers to streaming .wmv videos). What I'd like to do is write a script that would, rather than just redirecting to a static .asx file, generate one and send it to the client.

Simple, of course, if you're just echoing HTML. The problem is that I need the browser to treat this text as though it were a seperate file with an asx extension, not php (so that it opens Media Player and streams the video, rather than just displaying the text).

Am I being clear enough? Can such a thing be done?

Weedpacket

Course it can be done; there are a whole bunch of functions devoted to this sort of thing. See [man]readfile[/man], [man]filepassthru[/man], [man]header[/man]...

yelvington

http://www.php.net/header

Send an appropriate "Content-type:" string.

You might in some cases also wish to send a Content-Disposition header.

aaronk42

Thanks for the help, but I run into the same issue as before. I'll be the first to admit that I know little about HTTP headers, but I've already been experimenting with them nonetheless.

<?php

header("Content-type: application/asx");


// readfile() will be replaced by code that generates the
// contents of the asx file based on user input.

readfile("thefile.asx");

?>

The problem with this is that the browser gives me the option of saving or opening the php file, not the asx file. A fine line; if I choose to open it, it does so in my default PHP editor, not in Media Player (which knows how to handle an asx file).

Suggestions?

Weedpacket

That would be because the browser doesn't recognise the MIME type. A fifteen-second search on Google for asx mime type finds (in the summary of the first and fourth links - the fourth being Microsoft's) text to the effect that the correct MIME type is video/x-ms-asf.

You will also probably want to send other headers for things like length, name and so on.