Question

I have a list of data compiled from a mysql recordset when I click a button on one of my pages. The data is stored in a variable $list.

It’s a site activity log, and the button is a backup button.

Is there any way that I could make it open a SAVE AS dialogue box so I can save that data to a text file on my local comp?

Answer 1

when you click your “back up” button, you should get the user to a new script: this script should take the $list variable from the DB again and format it into a text file, then in order to make it available to the user’s browser as a downloadable file, you should use headers (look at http://php.net/manual/en/function.header.php) like this:

<?php
// We'll be outputting a PDF
header('Content-type: application/pdf');

// It will be called downloaded.pdf
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="downloaded.pdf"');

// The PDF source is in original.pdf
readfile('original.pdf');
?>

In this case this is a pdf file (example is from the above link). Changing the content-type to the proper mime-type (“Content-Type: text/plain” for example) and setting the right file name, all that you echo will be sent to the browser as an attached file.

If any question, ask 🙂