Question

How would I do something like this that works?

<input name="downvid2" type="button" id="downvid2" onclick="
  <?php
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=file.pdf');
header('Content-type: application/pdf');
readfile('file.pdf');
?>" value="Download Story" />

The thing is I would do a form and submit but I need the values of some PHP variables and I don’t want to lose them when I move pages.

The full code is:

<title>Legendmaker - Your Legendmaker Adventure Starring You:</title>

<?php
if( $_POST )
{
$username="***";
$password="*****";
    $con = mysqli_connect("storycodes.db.10339998.hostedresource.com",$username,$password);

    if (!$con)
    {
        die('Could not connect: ' . mysqli_error());
    }

    mysqli_select_db($con, "storycodes");

$code = $_POST['codeInput'];
$code = mysqli_escape_string($con, htmlspecialchars($code)); //May not acually need htmlspecialchars
$query = "SELECT story,video FROM `storycodes` WHERE `code` = '$code'";
$result = mysqli_query($con, $query);

  if (mysqli_num_rows($result)) 
  {
    $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
    mysqli_free_result($result); 
    extract($row);
    echo $story . $video;   


  }
   else 
  {
   echo "No Data Found. Please check your serial code to ensure that you have not incorrectly entered it. If the code is correct please email the website administrator for further assistance";
  }     

mysqli_close($con);
}
?>
<div align="center">
  <p><span class="linkText"><a href="/index.html">Home</a> <a href="/contact-us.php">Contact Us</a> <a href="/payments.html">Products</a><a href="/products.html"></a></span> </p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <h2 class="headingText"><img alt="legendmaker - makes legends: banner" width="728" height="90" /></h2>
  <h2 class="headingText">&nbsp;</h2>
  <h2 class="headingText">Your story</h2>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

  <label>
  <input type="button" name="downvid" id="downvid" value="Download Video" />
  </label>
  <input name="downvid2" type="button" id="downvid2" onclick="
  <?php
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=file.pdf');
header('Content-type: application/pdf');
readfile('file.pdf');
?>" value="Download Story" />

I think I have to have it take care of everything involving the file PHP because I want to make the files not web accesible so that only those who enter a serial code into the previous form could access it.

Answer 1

No, it cant work. PHP is a server side language, which HTML is not. If you don’t want to submit a form then you can use AJAX for that purpose, but not like you asked. Either you submit your form to send data to PHP or use JavaScript, AJAX notably.