php: force download to hd?

Question

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false);
header("Content-type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"". $file ."\";");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($file));
file_get_contents($file);
readfile($file);
exit();

any idea what I'm doing wrong? shouldn't this download any file from my server to the harddrive of the user? somehow every file is damaged! moreover I wonder how i can change the filename of the downloaded file?

$file always contains the full path to my file. if i try header('Location:' . $file ); the browser successfully opens my file. however if the file is a .jpg the browser doesn't prompt the download window. instead it just opens the file in the browserwindow. i want every file to be downloaded to the hd.

please help me guys. i'm after this for over a week now and i can't find a solution?

Answer 1

Why not use

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");

Instead of "force-download"

Also why are you doing file_get_contents and readfile? Only one is needed - You are basically including the file twice which is why it's corrupted. Here is how I would execute the above code:

header("Cache-Control: no-cache");
header("Expires: -1");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream;");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . basename($file) . "\";");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: " . filesize($file));
echo file_get_contents($file);

That should be sufficient - so long as the file actually exists