how to make a download link in PHP? [closed]

Answer 1

Some edits to this Code to make it work in my case. - For MP3s

You can call this by calling that file filedownload.php - Place it in your server.

Call it from a file like - From a WordPress Custom field in this example

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/filedownload.php?download=<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'mymp3_value', true) ?>">MP3</a>

Very simple to do.

<?php
    $name_of_file = $_GET["download"];

    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    // We'll be outputting a MP3
    header('Content-type: application/mp3');
    // It will be called file.mp3
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' .$name_of_file);
    header('Content-Length: '.filesize($name_of_file));
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    header('Pragma: public');
    // The MP3 source is in somefile.pdf
    //readfile("somefile.mp3");

    readfile_chunked($name_of_file);

    function readfile_chunked($filename) { 
        $chunksize = 1*(1024*1024); // how many bytes per chunk 
        $buffer = ''; 
        $handle = fopen($filename, 'rb');

        if ($handle === false) { 
            return false; 
        } 

        while (!feof($handle)) { 
            $buffer = fread($handle, $chunksize); 
            print $buffer; 
        } 

        return fclose($handle); 
    } 
?>

Answer 2

Place this code on a page (along with the PHP code to get the info from the DB and place it in the variables for the name/size/data, then link to that page.

<?php
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . $name_of_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: ' . $size_of_file);

echo $file_data;
?>

Not all of the headers listed above are strictly necessary - in fact, only the Content-Type header is truly necessary to make the download work properly. The Content-Disposition header is good to include so that you can specify a proper filename; the others just help the browser handled the download better and can be omitted if you desire.