How to Automatically Start a Download in PHP

Question

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

User · Answer

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.

User · Answer

Send the following headers before outputting the file   header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename       basename  File           header  Content-Type  application octet-stream    header  Content-Length      filesize  File    header  Connection  close       grom  Interesting about the  application octet-stream  MIME type  I wasn t aware of that  have always just used  application force-download

User · Answer

A clean example    lt  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     gt

User · Answer

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

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

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