[php] How to Automatically Start a Download in PHP?

What code do you need to add in PHP to automatically have the browser download a file to the local machine when a link is visited?

I am specifically thinking of functionality similar to that of download sites that prompt the user to save a file to disk once you click on the name of the software?

my code works for txt,doc,docx,pdf,ppt,pptx,jpg,png,zip extensions and I think its better to use the actual MIME types explicitly.

$file_name = "a.txt";

// extracting the extension:
$ext = substr($file_name, strpos($file_name,'.')+1);

header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename='.$file_name);

if(strtolower($ext) == "txt")
{
    header('Content-type: text/plain'); // works for txt only
}
else
{
    header('Content-type: application/'.$ext); // works for all extensions except txt
}
readfile($decrypted_file_path);

Here is an example of sending back a pdf.

header('Content-type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . basename($filename) . '"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
readfile($filename);

@Swish I didn't find application/force-download content type to do anything different (tested in IE and Firefox). Is there a reason for not sending back the actual MIME type?

Also in the PHP manual Hayley Watson posted:

If you wish to force a file to be downloaded and saved, instead of being rendered, remember that there is no such MIME type as "application/force-download". The correct type to use in this situation is "application/octet-stream", and using anything else is merely relying on the fact that clients are supposed to ignore unrecognised MIME types and use "application/octet-stream" instead (reference: Sections 4.1.4 and 4.5.1 of RFC 2046).

Also according IANA there is no registered application/force-download type.

A clean example.

<?php
    header('Content-Type: application/download');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="example.txt"');
    header("Content-Length: " . filesize("example.txt"));

    $fp = fopen("example.txt", "r");
    fpassthru($fp);
    fclose($fp);
?>