PHP Force Download
April 22nd, 2008
So today I needed to force a file to download in a web browser where the browser would normally just output the file. It will also work in IE6 over a secure (HTTPS) connection.. which was a bit like hard work.
Example Usage:
So I wanted to create a temporary file, write some contents to it then force the file to be outputted via the browser and deleted on completion of download.
function forceDownload($file,$name=false,$contenttype="application/octet-stream",$delete=false){
if (!$name) $name = $file;
header("Cache-Control: public, must-revalidate");
header("Pragma: hack");
header("Content-Type: " . $contenttype);
header("Content-Length: " .(string)(filesize($file)) );
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($name).'"');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\n");
$fp = fopen($file, 'rb');
$buffer = fread($fp, filesize($file));
fclose ($fp);
echo $buffer;
if ($delete){
unlink($file);
}
}
Example Usage:
So I wanted to create a temporary file, write some contents to it then force the file to be outputted via the browser and deleted on completion of download.
$data = 'what a load of content'; // data to write to a file $filename = 'cache/tmpfile.txt'; // the file to write the data too, must be writable file_put_contents($filename,$data); // write the data to the file // force the download and delete the file afterwards forceDownload($filename,'whateverfilenameyoulike.txt','text/plain',true);
A really good, touching British Movie, set mostly in the 70's this is about Joe Scott a failing Hollywood actor played by Daniel Craig who "sees the light" (so cliche), but in spite of that this is a really unique film that gets you thinking.
pr($array)
So having got frustrated with their being no Official UK Top 40 Singles or Album chart RSS feeds I decided i'd make my own...
Yes people, it's true!
