Magnetic Monks, When downloading a file via Perl, I figure I should be able to force the user's machine to start up an MS Office app by preceeding the file with the appropriate MIME type disposition header.

In the past, when I downloaded, for example, a PowerPoint file, I preceeded it with

print "Content-type: application/vnd.ms-powerpoint\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename\n\n";
[download]

and it always opened in PowerPoint. But I was actually downloading PowerPoint files.

Today, I want to download what is really an HTML file but force it to open in PowerPoint, like this:

$my_html_file = "some_file.htm";

open(FILE, $my_html_file) or dienice("cannot open file $my_html_file :
+ $_[0] $!");
@LINES = <FILE>;
close(FILE);


$filename = "thetest.ppt";

print "Content-type: application/vnd ms-powerpoint\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename\n\n";

for $i (0..$#LINES) {
    print $LINES[$i];
}
[download]

but the file is just being displayed in the browser - it's completely ignoring the dispositoin header. (MSIE)

Am I doing something wrong, or expecting the impossible?

Thanks.

---

In reply to Sending MIME type headers not forcing desired behaviour. by punch_card_don

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