simple way to make link prompt 'save as'

Question

Is there a quick inline way, to make some of my links prompt 'save file as' (Same screen as right click) after the first initial click?

possible duplicate of [open download dialog with php](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/985083/open-download-dialog-with-php) — mario, Dec 06 '11 at 13:56
Not really a duplicate because the question doesn't directly ask how to do it using server-side. Therefore the answer needs to explain that it cannot be done client-side and therefore server side approach is needed. — Gajus, Dec 06 '11 at 14:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 06 '11 at 13:53

You simply need to send appropriate headers. Content-Disposition is the key (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME).

See PHP example below.

/**
 * @author Gajus Kuizinas <g.kuizinas@anuary.com>
 * @copyright Anuary Ltd, http://anuary.com
 * @version 1.0.1 (2011 11 18)
 */
function ay_file_force_download($file, $file_name = NULL)
{
    if(headers_sent())
    {
        throw new Ay_Exception('Headers have been already sent. Cannot force file download.');
    }

    $file_name  = $file_name === NULL ? basename($file) : $file_name;

    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . $file_name);
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    header('Pragma: public');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
    ob_clean();
    flush();
    readfile($file);

    exit;
}

Oh - But, wouldn't that apply to all my links? I just wanted to do this with certain links? - possible? — Dr Upvote, Dec 06 '11 at 14:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 06 '11 at 13:55

What you really need on the php side is to set the Content-Disposition header, to attachment, as in header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=name-of-file');. If you have to or want to do it on the client side, browsers will automatically attempt to download a lot of document types, so you can just provide a straight link to it. Apparently this is not happening for you, though, so of course it's not dependable.

simple way to make link prompt 'save as'

2 Answers2