Question

I’m asking for a solution how to make PHP download a file without redirect and without reading file source like in this example:

if(1 == 1)
{
    header("Content-Type: application/xml");
    header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
    header("Cache-Control: private",false); 
    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=example.xml;" );    
    $file = file_get_contents("file.ext");
    echo file;
}

I need solution for download witout file_get_contents make the download like mod_rewrite.

Thanks

Answer 1

You could use Apache with the X Send File module https://tn123.org/mod_xsendfile/

mod_xsendfile is a small Apache2 module that processes X-SENDFILE
headers registered by the original output handler.

If it encounters the presence of such header it will discard all
output and send the file specified by that header instead using Apache
internals including all optimizations like caching-headers and
sendfile or mmap if configured.

It is useful for processing script-output of e.g. php, perl or any
cgi.