PHP AJAX Jquery - File download issue

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Downloading Via JQuery AJAX Post not working

filedownload.php has below snippent.

$file = 'cut.png';
header("Content-Type: image/png");
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$file.'"');
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/download");
readfile($file);
exit();

AJAX Call

jQuery.post('filedownload.php',{            
  'file'  :  result  // not used for the time being                    
 });

I make an ajax call to the filedownload.php file. It does not allow user to download the file. But If I run the php directly it allows user to download the file. What could be the issue ?

I would like to use core functions rather than using jQuery Plugins. If it's not possible a plugin would be fine.

Given that I use ajax because the page can not be refreshed.

Check this out : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/676348/allow-user-to-download-file-using-ajax — Karan Punamiya, Dec 14 '12 at 07:00

Techie · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-14T08:10:39.930

The Problem

Let's take the example of a productivity web app such as a spreadsheet editor, which has the ability to open, save, import and export. The open and save options would involve loading a spreadsheet from the database, whereas import and export deal with local files on the user's machine. To implement the export behavior, you might decide that the user should have to save their spreadsheet first, allowing you to export the data from the backend to file. But let's assume instead you'd like to allow users to export their data without saving, perhaps to afford them the option of working locally without ever storing data on the server. In order to do this, you'd need to send the current spreadsheet data to the backend and receive a file to download. Unfortunately, this can not be handled using Ajax, since Ajax can only receive responses in the form of text. In cases where the data to be saved is rather lengthy, this poses a considerable problem.

The Workaround

In order to make the request, you'd need to make a regular (not Ajax) HTTP request using GET or POST. If the data is reasonably short, you might get away with a GET request (perhaps by simply setting Window.location to your export url), but due to varying browser limitations on GET request length, a POST will most likely be needed. The following plugin allows you to make a request that returns a file in a similar syntax to jQuery's native Ajax functions.

jQuery Code Which fixes the problem

jQuery.download = function(url, data, method){
    //url and data options required
    if( url && data ){ 
        //data can be string of parameters or array/object
        data = typeof data == 'string' ? data : jQuery.param(data);
        //split params into form inputs
        var inputs = '';
        jQuery.each(data.split('&'), function(){ 
            var pair = this.split('=');
            inputs+='<input type="hidden" name="'+ pair[0] +'" value="'+ pair[1] +'" />'; 
        });
        //send request
        jQuery('<form action="'+ url +'" method="'+ (method||'post') +'">'+inputs+'</form>')
        .appendTo('body').submit().remove();
    };
};

How to call

$.download('filedownload.php','filename='+filename );

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PHP AJAX Jquery - File download issue

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