Download part of HTML page as text (PHP)

Question

So I have an 'export' application that arrives the user at an end page with a textarea with lots of text. Now the workflow is to copy and paste that text from the textarea into a file.

The exported code is getting larger, and we want to encourage users to do this more often, so the copy/paste route is no longer desirable. (Not to mention that my xterm->ssh->screen->vi chain doesn't paste 250K characters so well)

So the problem is this: I have a textarea that has exported code in it, and I want to provide a button that is 'Download this Code to a file'

I'm fairly sure that I will have to hit the server again, but I just want to check all my bases. The ways I can think of doing this (sending generated textarea value as a file ot the browser)

• Create a script that receives said text as a POST and sends it back with the right Content Headers. This is no desirable because we would be POSTing 250k, which would be slower than:

• Create a script that regenerates the text area and provide a button the original page that hits the scripts and downloads the file. This is the option I am leaning towards

• Use Javascript somehow and perhaps beable to skip the server all together and just send the $('.exported').val() to the browser with the right headers? Not sure how to do this atm.

So if anyone has suggestions that'd be great, maybe I'm overlooking something. Thanks!

edit: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/609530/download-textarea-contents-as-a-file-using-only-javascript-no-server-side

This question says the JS route is not possible (probable)

Answer 1

Following your second option, you could trigger your script with a keyword to send the data as attachment.

Here’s an example of how it could look like:

if (isset($_GET['download'])) {
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="dump.data"');
    echo $data;
    exit;
} else {
    echo '<textarea>', htmlspecialchars($data), '</textarea>';
}

Answer 2

options:

• TEXT ALREDY IN THE SERVER:

  • MAKE A GETFILE.PHP that reponse that text in a file.

• TEXT IN THE CLIENT

  • POST THE TEXT TO A GETFILE.PHP and response the file.
  • POST THE TEXT TO A GETFILE.PHP, storage the file and provide a LINK to DOWNLOAD (then you could delete or not the file, depending of your needs)

Here is some example of this http://www.osix.net/modules/article/?id=773

Answer 3

I would suggest the following: make your button replace the whole DOM of the page with your text. After that, user will be able to simply press Ctrl+S or ⌘S. Not exactly what you want, but still a shortcut.

I guess you can do it with the following (jQuery):

$ (document.body).html ($ ('#textarea-id').html)

(Not tested)

Answer 4

I would go with option 2. Simplest and fastest. The other ones are a bit contrived.

If you go with option 2, why even leave the textarea at all?