PHP: download PHP generated files

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April 24th, 2004, 05:12 AM

zalfreid

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PHP: download PHP generated files

I have such a problem in my project.
PHP generates table and i have to save this table on user's machine in some type
for example CSV. How it is possible to do in PHP to generate file and make it possible to
download like usual file from url without using server's space.

Thanx in advance

May 27th, 2004, 05:08 PM

dotty

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Below is the code I use to print onto a page which can be downloaded as csv file.

Make a new page called 'anythingyoulike.php'. Substitute your connection,recordset, fieldnames for your own. Make sure that your client knows that when saving to his/her computer, select 'text file' as the filetype option and not html - also name the file with extension .csv

PHP Code:


		
			
<?php require_once('connection.php'); ?>
<?php
mysql_select_db($database_bbcomp, $bbcomp);
$query_export_file = "SELECT * FROM bbcomp WHERE maillist = 'Y'";
$export_file = mysql_query($query_export_file, $bbcomp) or die(mysql_error());
$row_export_file = mysql_fetch_assoc($export_file);
$totalRows_export_file = mysql_num_rows($export_file);
/*echo "ID".","."First Name".","."Last Name".","."Address1".","."Address2".","."Country".","."Telephone".","."Mobile".","."Email".","."Age".","."Sex".","."Question".","."Interests".","."Opt-in Maillist"."<br><br>";*/
do {
echo $row_export_file['id'].",".$row_export_file['firstname'].",".$row_export_file['lastname'].",".$row_export_file['address1'].",".$row_export_file['address2'].",".$row_export_file['county'].",".$row_export_file['phone'].",".$row_export_file['mobile'].",".$row_export_file['email'].".".$row_export_file['age'].",".$row_export_file['sex'].",".$row_export_file['question'].",".$row_export_file['interests'].",".$row_export_file['maillist']."\n";
} while ($row_export_file = mysql_fetch_assoc($export_file));
 
?>

Zalfreid - did you discover a way to save directly to computer? If so, would you share it here?

Hope this helps you.

June 5th, 2004, 11:45 AM

Archemides

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Dummy Zip Files download ok.

I wanted to find a way to create a zip or tar file at my site, with php, so that someone might download it, but i could not use exec(tar..) or system(tar...) because my host does not give me access, but I found a neat trick... if i rename any file as somefile.zip , then it automatically downloads, even though it is not a zip file

The user can click on a link to that dummy.zip file, or simply point their browser to http://somesite.com/dummy.zip , and it downloads

June 5th, 2004, 11:57 AM

Archemides

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Different approach

Someone in IRC #phpfreaks channel just kindly gave me this link, though I have not tried it out.

http://www.sephiroth.it/phpwiki/ind...%20text%20files
Description:
When you need to send to the browser a 'text' (or .as, .sql, or php file too) base file but you don't want that the browser displays it in the output. If you want to allow browser ask to "save" the document use this php header (seems working also under netscape)

the code:

PHP Code:


		
			
<?

   $string = "bla bla bla";  // this can be a variable string or a row from a sql query or something else...

   $ext = "txt";   // file extension

   $mime_type = (PMA_USR_BROWSER_AGENT == 'IE' || PMA_USR_BROWSER_AGENT == 'OPERA')

   ? 'application/octetstream'

   : 'application/octet-stream';

   header('Content-Type: ' . $mime_type);

   if (PMA_USR_BROWSER_AGENT == 'IE')

   {

      header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $filename . '.' . $ext . '"');

      header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");

      header('Expires: 0');

      header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');

      header('Pragma: public');

      print $string;

   } else {

      header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '.' . $ext . '"');

      header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");

      header('Expires: 0');

      header('Pragma: no-cache');

      print $string;

   }

?>

Last edited by edwinbrains : June 6th, 2004 at 01:18 PM. Reason: [php] and [/php] added

June 6th, 2004, 01:19 PM

edwinbrains

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Archemides: I added [php ] and [/php ] tags to that, just to make it easier to read.

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