Django download file empty

Question

I am writing a simple function for downloading a certain file, from the server, to my machine. The file is unique represented by its id. The file is locatd corectly, and the download is done, but the downloaded file (though named as the one on the server) is empty. my download function looks like this:

def download_course(request, id):
    course = Courses.objects.get(pk = id).course
    path_to_file = 'root/cFolder'
    filename = __file__ # Select your file here.                                
    wrapper = FileWrapper(file(filename))
    content_type = mimetypes.guess_type(filename)[0]
    response = HttpResponse(wrapper, content_type = content_type)
    response['Content-Length'] = os.path.getsize(filename)
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=%s/' % smart_str(course)

    return response

where can i be wrong? thanks!

Answer 1

Looks like you're not sending any data (you don't even open the file).

Django has a nice wrapper for sending files (code taken from djangosnippets.org):

def send_file(request):
    """                                                                         
    Send a file through Django without loading the whole file into              
    memory at once. The FileWrapper will turn the file object into an           
    iterator for chunks of 8KB.                                                 
    """
    filename = __file__ # Select your file here.                                
    wrapper = FileWrapper(file(filename))
    response = HttpResponse(wrapper, content_type='text/plain')
    response['Content-Length'] = os.path.getsize(filename)
    return response

so you could use something like response = HttpResponse(FileWrapper(file(path_to_file)), mimetype='application/force-download').

If you are really using lighttpd (because of the "X-Sendfile" header), you should check the server and FastCGI configuration, I guess.

Answer 2

I answered this question here, hope it helps.