Question

I have a pdf file which is located off my webpage’s root. I want to serve a file in ../cvs to my users using php.

Here is the code I have sofar:

header('Content-type: application/pdf');

$file = file_get_contents('/home/eamorr/sites/eios.com/www/cvs/'.$cv);
echo $file;

But when I call this php page, nothing gets printed! I’d like to simply serve the pdf file stored whose name is in $cv (e.g. $cv = 'xyz.pdf').

The ajax response to this PHP page returns the text of the pdf (gobbldy-gook!), but I want the file, not the gobbldy-gook!

I hope this makes sense.

Many thanks in advance,

---

Here’s the AJAX I’m using

$('#getCurrentCV').click(function(){
    var params={
        type: "POST",
        url: "./ajax/getCV.php",
        data: "",
        success: function(msg){
            //msg is gobbldy-gook!
        },
        error: function(){

        }
    };
    var result=$.ajax(params).responseText;
});

I’d like the user to be prompted to download the file.

Answer 1

Don’t use XHR (Ajax), just link to a script like the one below. The HTTP headers the script outputs will instruct the browser to download the file, so the user will not navigate away from the current page.

<?php
// "sendfile.php"

//remove after testing - in particular, I'm concerned that our file is too large, and there's a memory_limit error happening that you're not seeing messages about.
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',1);

$file = '/home/eamorr/sites/eios.com/www/cvs/'.$cv;

//check sanity and give meaning error messages
// (also, handle errors more gracefully here, you don't want to emit details about your
//  filesystem in production code)
if (! file_exists($file)) die("$file does not exist!");
if (! is_readable($file)) die("$file is unreadable!");

//dump the file
header('Cache-Control: public'); 
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="some-file.pdf"');
header('Content-Length: '.filesize($file));

readfile($file);

?>

Then, simplify your javascript:

$('#getCurrentCV').click(function(){
     document.location.href="sendfile.php";
});