Forcing to download a file using PHP

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I have a CSV file on my server. If a user clicks on a link it should download, but instead it opens up in my browser window.

My code looks as follows

<a href="files/csv/example/example.csv">
    Click here to download an example of the "CSV" file
</a>

It's a normal webserver where I have all of my development work on.

I tried something like:

<a href="files/csv/example/csv.php">
    Click here to download an example of the "CSV" file
</a>

Now the contents of my csv.php file:

header('Content-Type: application/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=example.csv');
header('Pragma: no-cache');

Now my issue is it's downloading, but not my CSV file. It creates a new file.

download http php
10 Answers

To force download you may use Content-Type: application/octet-stream header, which is supported by most browsers:

function downloadFile($filePath)
{
    header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . basename($filePath) . '"');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filePath));
    readfile($filePath);
}

A BETTER WAY

Downloading files this way is not the best idea especially for large files. PHP will require extra CPU / Memory to read and output file contents and when dealing with large files may reach time / memory limits.

A better way would be to use PHP to authenticate and grant access to a file, and actual file serving should be delegated to a web server using X-SENDFILE method (requires some web server configuration):

After configuring web server to handle X-SENDFILE, just replace readfile($filePath) with header('X-SENDFILE: ' . $filePath) and web server will take care of file serving, which will require less resources than using PHP readfile.

(For Nginx use X-Accel-Redirect header instead of X-SENDFILE)

Note: If you end up downloading empty files, it means you didn't configure your web server to handle X-SENDFILE header. Check the links above to see how to correctly configure your web server.

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