PHP generate file for download then redirect

user_30098 0
Viewed 98794

I have a PHP app that creates a CSV file which is forced to download using headers. Here's the relevant part of the code:

header('Content-Type: application/csv'); 
header("Content-length: " . filesize($NewFile)); 
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $FileName . '"'); 
echo $content;
exit();

What I'd like to do is redirect users to a new page after the file is built and the download prompt is sent. Just adding header("Location: /newpage") to the end didn't work, expectedly, so I'm not sure how to rig this up.

header redirect php
11 Answers

I don't think this can be done - although I am not 100% sure.

The common thing (e.g. in popular download sites) is the reverse: first you go to the after page and then the download starts.

So redirect your users to the final page that (among other things) says:

Your download should start automatically. If not click [a href="create_csv.php"]here[/a].

As about initiating the download (e.g. automatically calling create_csv.php) you have many options:

  • HTML: [meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=http://site/create_csv.php"]
  • Javascript: location.href = 'http://site/create_csv.php';
  • iframe: [iframe src="create_csv.php"][/iframe]
daremon_63460

very easy to do in the case it is really needed.

But you will need to have a bit work in JavaScript and cookies:

in PHP you should add setting up a cookie

header('Set-Cookie: fileLoading=true');

then on the page where you call the download you should track with JS (e.g. once per second) if there is coming cookie like that (there is used plugin jQuery cookie here):

setInterval(function(){
  if ($.cookie("fileLoading")) {
    // clean the cookie for future downoads
    $.removeCookie("fileLoading");

    //redirect
    location.href = "/newpage";
  }
},1000);

Now if the file starts to be downoaded JS recognizes it and redirects to the page needed after cookie is deleted.

Of course, you can tell you need browser to accept cookies, JavaScript and so on, but it works.

user_19904510

The header you are sending are HTTP headers. The browser takes that as a page request and processes it as a page. And in your case, a page it needs to download.

So adding a redirect header to that confuses the whole process of downloading the file (since headers are collected, generated into one header and then sent to the browser, you can try this by setting multiple redirect headers IIRC)

211lafur_Waage_224590

I found one workaround for this that relies on javascript, so it's not exactly secure, but for non-secure critical sites it seems to work.

Have a form with a button titled 'download' with the action set to point to the download script, then using javascript put something on the onsubmit handler that strips out the download button and replaces the messaging on the screen. The download should still happen and the screen will change. Obviously, if there's an issue with the download script then it still looks like the download was successful even if it doesn't fire, but it's the best I've got right now.

user_12696750

You can try and redirect to the URL plus a parameter that represents the file contents. And in the redirect, you can output the file content for download.

Admin1

Hmmmm...

Put the code below in the main javascript of the site.

 if (window.location.pathname == '/url_of_redirect/') {
        window.open(location.protocol + '//' + location.hostname + '/url_of_download.zip', '_parent');
    }

Explaining: It does the normal redirect with php to some url you will difine and in javascipt it says: If the pathname is the same as the path that redirect made '/url_of_redirect/' then it opens the url on a new page, generating the downlod.

user_105747900
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