Pushing a file to the users browser

- 620 Posts
Sean Kimball Reply #1, 9 years, 11 months ago
I'm trying to generate and push a CSV file [report] to the browser, I place this in a snippet:
```
if (file_exists($filename)) {echo 'reading file';
 header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
 header('Content-Type: text/csv');
 header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($filename));
 //header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
 header('Expires: 0');
 header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
 header('Pragma: public');
 header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filename));
 ob_clean();
 flush();
 readfile($filename);
}
```
Snippet:
```
[[!downloadReport? &filename=`[[!getVariable? &var=`report`]]`]]
```
but what I get back looks is just the page I am submitting the download request from back.

the file does exist
the correct file will download IF I place an exit(); after the download code.
I'm thinking this is happening because modx has already sent the headers?

How do I fix this?
*** Not just websites, we also create signage, banners, print, trade show displays and more! ***

Sean Kimball CLP, CLS.
Technical Director / Sr. Developer | BigBlock Studios
._______________________________________________.
Bigblock Studios http://www.bigblockstudios.ca Web site design & development.
27-1300 King Street East. Box 167 Oshawa, Ontario L1H8J4 Canada.
phone/fax: 905-426-5525

534 Posts

exside Reply #2, 9 years, 11 months ago

By making the changes to core/model/modx/modfilehandler.class.php which I proposed here: https://github.com/modxcms/revolution/pull/11371

then you could create a snippet "getDownload" with the code

$modx->getService('file', 'modFileHandler');

// if you generate the data afterwards (inside this snippet 
// the download path doesn't matter as no physical file is ever created...)
$fileobj = $modx->file->make(MODX_BASE_PATH . $download);
// or in your specific case
// $fileobj = $modx->file->make($modx->runSnippet('getVariable', array('var' => 'report')));

// you could generate your data here (the csv)
// and make a temporary file (not in the filesystem) like
// $csvdata = 'csvstring;etc;bla'
// $fileobj->setContents($csvdata);

$fileobj->download();

and then call it like:

[[!getDownload? &download=`assets/file.csv`]]

[ed. note: exside last edited this post 9 years, 11 months ago.]