On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 07:01:59PM -0700, Jeffry Killen wrote: > On Apr 2, 2015, at 6:33 PM, Sean Greenslade wrote: > >A quick google turned up this result: > > > >http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8485886/force-file-download-with-php-using-header > > > >See if that helps. > > > >--Sean > > Thank you for the link, I am getting an idea of what is going on here, even > though I don't > know that the posters problem was solved. > > So, if I understand the basics, > > a bunch of headers are sent and then the file is read. But I don't see a > print or echo statement > in any of the code in the related posts. The header set functions need to be run before the actual content of the page is generated. This has to do with the way that the HTTP protocol works. The header is always generated by the webserver, and PHP has the option of modifying / appending to it before it gets sent. This all must happen before the content of the page gets sent, becase the server must finish and send the headers before it sends any content. Once there is content, the headers are locked for that pageload. > I have read a file as a string, sent a Content-Type header and then used a > print statement to send > the file contents for an async request: in cases where css or javascript is > requested after a page > loads. The output is sent to the browser. I'm a bit confused by this, so you'll need to clarify. Setting the headers to inform the browser that the file is a download has nothing to do with js, css, or html. It's a built-in feature of the browser to interpret the headers and decide to download the file instead of display it. All you need to take advantage of this is to place a link to the PHP page that supplies the file and let the user click it. If the page sets the headers correctly, clicking that link will cause thier browser to start downloading the file (and, depending on browser settings, possibly offer a save location dialog). If you're attempting to achieve this using an ajax solution, I'd actually recommend not trying to load the file by ajax. Just use javascript to open a new window to the download link. Using the same mechanism as above, the browser will handle things for you. > But this situation appears different. The file content is sent to the > browser but the browser writes > it directly to a separate file (?) > > JK Note that there is no way to specify where the file gets downloaded. That is up to the browser, and based on its settings. Some browsers default to asking you where to save the file, and others toss all files into a Downloads directory. --Sean -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
