File Download from Web

jiewho has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: File Download from Web by TomDLux (Vicar) on Mar 12, 2004 at 01:28 UTC
How about simply putting a URL on a web page linking to the text file: `<a href="file.txt">My newly generated file</a>` [download] -- `TTTATCGGTCGTTATATAGATGTTTGCA`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: File Download from Web by esskar (Deacon) on Mar 12, 2004 at 02:38 UTC
lets say your script is generating a gif `#!/usr/bin/perl # script.pl use strict; use warnings; my $gif = pack("H*", '47494638396101000100B30000888888' . 'FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF' . 'FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF' . 'FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF2C0000' . '0000010001000004021044003B' ); print "Content-Type: image/gif\n\n"; binmode STDOUT; print $gif;` [download] then just add to your web page as pointed out above `<a href="script.pl">A Gif</a>` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: File Download from Web by jiewho (Novice) on Mar 12, 2004 at 08:03 UTC
Thanks for the input. Both methods are to have the file displayed in the browser window. But this is not what I meant. When a user clicks the link, I want a file download dialogue window to pop up, so the user can save this file to the local computer. This automatically happens when the file is a .tar.gz type file. But if the file is a .txt file, it's displayed in the browser window. So is there a way not to have the .txt file displayed but to pop up a file download dialogue window when the link is clicked? Thanks	[reply]
Re: Re: File Download from Web by simon.proctor (Vicar) on Mar 12, 2004 at 09:32 UTC
Your program needs to send the file to the user itself. When you click a link you are linking to the program and not to the file, something like: `<a href="/yourprogram.cgi">Click here</a>` [download] The program must spit out the correct headers. One of these should probably be 'content-disposition' so I suggest you poke around based on that. Be wary of specifiying the file in the link unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing, otherwise this can happen: `<a href="file.cgi?file=../../../etc/passwd">here</a>` [download] Ok thats a contrived example to indicated what I mean but that should indicate the problems you face ;). If you are not careful someone could download any file on your system which is something you definitely wouldn't want :).	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: File Download from Web by esskar (Deacon) on Mar 12, 2004 at 15:32 UTC
okay... then use `print "Content-Type: application/octet-stream\n\n";` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: File Download from Web by wolfi (Scribe) on Mar 12, 2004 at 09:55 UTC
not really perl-solutions, but after some thought - well... changing the mime-types won't work, since some browsers disregard this in favour of their own results from their pre-scanning of the file - and changing the extension of the file would probably confuse visitors... or scare'em. setting up some ftp-thingee might be a thought - but really -> the easiest thing you can do is to compress it (if you don't wanna use tar.gz - use WinZip - or better yet, have both options available). Zipped files are always (i would think) downloaded like ya want. OR... simply put a link to the document and tell your users, that if they'd like a copy - they should right-click on the link and select SAVE TARGET AS (or whatever). That'd be the easiest.	[reply]


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