Downloading file though AJAX POST

Question

I\'m trying to provide a simple download using AJAX POST request. A user clicks a and the download begins (or a download dialog shows up, depending

Answer 1

I don't think its possible using ajax, I had the same issue and the download was not triggered. My solution was using only PHP:

1. Create a new file when the page is loaded, on the background. This will be stored in a server location.

   $out = fopen('filename', 'w+');
   //write data in file
   fputcsv($out, some csv values );
   

2. have a link to the client to download it

   <a href='<?php echo $filename;?>' >Export Data to CSV file</a>
   

And depending on how often this is done, you must clean-up the downloads regularly to not fill the server.

Answer 2

I do not get why you want to trigger an ajax call for download? Why don't you just do a regular <a href="download/me">Download</a> and set the mime type of that page. This way you can run any php code and then echo a mime type, this will not cause the page to reload and you will stay in the page from where you did the click.

http://davidwalsh.name/php-header-mime

Answer 3

You don't download the file using AJAX.

You just have to give the URL like <a href="myFile.jpeg"> but the problem is that you have to force download using headers and URL Rewriting to intercept the requests:

In case of an image:

---

$filename = basename($_GET['img']); // don't accept other directories
$size = @getimagesize($filename);
$fp = @fopen($filename, "rb");
if ($size && $fp)
{
   header("Content-type: {$size['mime']}");
   header("Content-Length: " . filesize($filename));
   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename");
   header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
   header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
   fpassthru($fp);
   exit;
}

In this case.. the URL will not be changed (I think this is what you want)