Force download link on a google docs spreadsheet

Question

Is there a way to force a download link instead of the browser trying to open the file? In this case I have a docs spreadsheet and a some links to mp3 files. I want the users to

Answer 1

In my app I needed to download a Google Drive's spread sheet in the form of a CSV file (Comma Separated Values). Google Drive's files are referenced by long ID's such as:

1uFwmwD5UFLdD1DMPGT5p4fIGozfImx44DNCOeMJr1Lo

Here is a code block that will do this. If there is an error the method will return a zero length string.

- (NSString *) downloadGoogleSheetGivenFileID: (NSString *) ID {
// This will download a Google spreadsheet given it's file ID
// and convert it to a CSV file.
NSString    *   preFix;
NSURL       *   myURL;
NSString    *   opCmd;
NSString    *   t;
NSString    *   theStuff;
NSError     *   error = nil;

theStuff = @"";
// The URL has to be: prefix+ID+opCmd  The only thing that changes is the file's ID
preFix = @"https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/download/spreadsheets/Export?key=";
opCmd = @"&exportFormat=csv";
t = preFix;
t = [t stringByAppendingString:ID];
t = [t stringByAppendingString:opCmd];
myURL = [NSURL URLWithString:t];
theStuff = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:myURL encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding error:&error];
if(error != nil)
{
    // There was an error downloading the spread sheet file.
    // We will return a zero length string.
    NSLog(@"%@",error);
}
return theStuff;

}