Question

I am using the FTP class in CodeIgniter, they have a function for downloading the file from the FTP, however, its only to the server itself. I am trying to get it to download straight to the user.

I know that i could just save it to the server and then force download and then delete. But its a bit of a hassle if the file is large and it would be slow.

So i am wondering from this code, if there is anyway just to use the force_download CI function?

Example;

$this->ftp->download('/public_html/myfile.html', '/local/path/to/myfile.html', 'ascii');

Thanks!

Answer 1

You simply download the file to PHP’s standard output stream instead of a file [stream] like so:

<?php

header('Content-type: text/plain');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="test.txt"');
$this->ftp->download('/public_html/test.txt', 'php://output', 'ascii');

(Note: headers are used to force the download, otherwise the browser would simply print the contents)

You’re welcome!