Readfile displays content

Question

When i use following headers, IE7 shows me the content of the file, not a download prompt. I searched al over google but didn't find an expanation.

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/force-download');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"Copy van '.basename($file).'\"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 0');
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0"); 
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($file);
exit;

Do the headers actually work? Check with `wget -S` or `curl` — mario, Feb 22 '13 at 21:56
Didn't check. But can you give som more explenation about `wget`? Never heard before... — Stef Geysels, Feb 22 '13 at 22:29
See [Headers already sent](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8028957/headers-already-sent-by-php) — mario, Feb 23 '13 at 00:01
Found it! I had al lot of code (html & javascript etc) before i tried to send the headers. NOT GOOD ;) — Stef Geysels, Feb 23 '13 at 00:38

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 23 '13 at 11:15

When you want to send headers, be sure they are the first output of your script.

this won't work:

<html>  //==>output buffer
echo ... //==>output buffer
<?php header(...) ?>

this works:

<?php
session_start();
$some_variable=$_POST[];
$k="2";
//until here, nothing is send to the output buffer
header(...);
?>
<html>

Readfile displays content

1 Answers1