Returning Files with an HTTP Request

 $filename = 'httpfile.zip'; header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename = $filename"); 

When a PHP script shall return a (downloadable) file instead of HTML, the correct HTTP headers have to be sent:

• Content-Disposition for the (proposed) name of the file

• Content-Length for the file size

• Content-Type for the MIME type of the file

The preceding code reads in a ZIP file and sends it to the client; Figure 6.6 shows its result in the browser.

Sending a File with HTTP (httpfile.php)

 <?php   $filename = 'httpfile.zip';   $mimetype = 'application/zip';   $data = file_get_contents($filename);   $size = strlen($data);   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename     = $filename");   header("Content-Length: $size");   header("Content-Type: $mimetype");   echo $data; ?> 

Figure 6.6. The browser wants to save the file.

What Does PEAR Offer?

The following PEAR packages offer functionality that can be used for working with files and streams:

• File offers some helper functions for file access, some of the deprecated to new functionality in more recent PHP releases

• File_Find searches a path for certain files or patterns

• File_SearchReplace does a Search and Replace within files

• Stream_Var allows you to save variables in streams, so you can access them like you would access files or streams