How Can PHP Force the Download of a CSV File Instead of Displaying It in the Browser?

Forcing File Download in PHP

When attempting to download CSV files from a server, users may encounter unexpected behavior where the file opens in the browser instead of downloading. This article will explore solutions using PHP to ensure CSV files are downloaded successfully.

Original Code

The original code provided includes an HTML link to download the CSV file. However, by default, browsers handle CSV files differently and may attempt to display them as web pages.

.htaccess Solution

For a comprehensive approach, modify the webserver configuration in .htaccess to force all CSV files to be downloaded as binary data:

AddType application/octet-stream csv

PHP Solution

To force a specific CSV file to download using PHP, the following code can be used:

header('Content-Type: application/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=example.csv');
header('Pragma: no-cache');
readfile("/path/to/yourfile.csv");

This code sets the proper headers to inform the browser that the file should be downloaded, including the filename and content type. Additionally, the readfile() function reads the CSV file from the specified path and streams the data to the browser.

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