downloading files with php

rakennedy75

This may be a simple question. I am downloading zipped files from my server through a link. I want to be able to track these links so I would like the link to go to another php file where this will force the download and track the click at the same time.

I know how to pass the variable to do this, ex: my_file.zip?file=<?=$file?> and I know how to write the script to track the click. What I need is to know how to get this file to download using a php script.

Any ideas or examples on this would be great.

Thanks for taking the time.

pyro

Something like this:

header("Location:http://www.yourdomain.com/downloads/".$file);

The_Chancer

You may well need a few more bits...

function download($file,$filename){
$size=filesize(urldecode($file)); 

$attachment=(
    strpos($HTTP_USER_AGENT,"Mozilla/4")===false // Not Moz4
    ||                                           // or
    strpos($HTTP_USER_AGENT,"MSIE")!==false)     // is IE
    ? ' attachment;'
    : '';
header("Content-Disposition:$attachment filename=".urldecode($filename)."");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream"); 
header("Content-Length: $size"); 
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary"); 
readfile(urldecode($file));
}

Seems to work for me 😃

pyro

With a .zip file, you shouldn't need anything else...

The_Chancer

True - mine was very generic... not a bad example tho !
😃

rakennedy75

Thanks for all the help. I tried the simple header redirect and this works in some browsers but acts funny in others. For example, it downloads it but not as a zip file. In Explorer the file was downloaded as a php page and than a window popped up with a lot of binary code, i think. I could fix this by expanding it and i get the image ok.

I would like to avoid making users do this since its a very good chance they won't know how not to mention its just ugly.

Does anyone know why this happens? Is there a solution to this?

Thanks again for your time

rakennedy75

I was looking at you script chancer. The function has two parameters, $file and $filename. Excuse the ignorance but I what exacty are the variables being passed to this script. I know one of them is actually the filename of the zip file. How about the other one?

Thanks