Question

I have a php file like this:

<?php

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"my-data.csv\"");

$data = stripcslashes($_REQUEST['data']);
echo $data; 

?>

I can post (proper formatted) data to it and it will return a csv file. I do that like this:

    var data = $('table').toCSV('tbody > tr');
    $('table').addEvent('click', function(){            
        new Request({
                url: 'getCSV.php',
                method: 'post'                  
        }).send('data=' + data);            
    }); 

In Firebug I can see the request works and the response is ok. But the Download dialog does not pop up; how to fix that? Do I need different headers in the PHP file?

Answer 1

I changed the JS to this:

    var data = $('lijst').toCSV('tbody > tr');

    var form    = new Element('form', {method: 'post', action : 'getCSV.php'});
    var field   = new Element('input', {type: 'hidden', name: 'data', value: data});
    var submit  = new Element('input', {'type' : 'submit', 'value' : 'Download'});
    form.adopt(field,submit);

    form.inject($('lijst').getElement('caption'));

Which adds a nice download button to the table and as the browser follows a form submit, the download dialog pops up. Thanks for thinking with me.