Question

I want the users of my php script to be able to download the contents of a certain text file from my server but I don’t want them to download it directly from my server so I want to go through a php file called download.php

I use this code to trigger the file prompt

header("Content-Type: text/plain");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=textfile.txt");
header("Content-Length: " . filesize('textfile.txt');

$fp = fopen('textfile.txt', "r");
fpassthru($fp);
fclose($fp);

The code works, the file gets downloaded but it seems the code ignores new lines of that text file.

Let’s say the content of the original text file is

word1
word2
word3
word4
word5

The content of the downloaded file would be

word1word2word3word4word5

How can I fix it that the downloaded file actually retains the new lines of the original text file?

Answer 1

Here’s a code to convert text file EOLs from Linux, Windows and Mac to Windows.
So no matter what EOLs your file has it will open fine on Win.

header("Content-Type: text/plain");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=textfile.txt");
header("Content-Length: " . filesize('textfile.txt'));

$f = file_get_contents('textfile.txt');
$f = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $f); //Convert Windows to Unix
$f = str_replace("\r", "\n", $f); //Convert Mac to Unix
$f = str_replace("\n", "\r\n", $f); //Convert Unix to Windows
echo $f;

The code is short but it’s not too good for huge files.