Also, if anybody has any comments about this method, that it is stupid and why, please tell me.

Two major reasons:

• not secure -- the symlink puts the file in an http-accesible location .. doesn't matter that it's for a relatively short timeframe; it's still available to whoever..
• will fail -- you're guessing at when the file can be deleted .. what if the d/l stops 1/2 way through and the user refreshes to start it again? It's going to take a net of at least 50% longer than anticipated.. The longer you make the window to compensate for this the bigger the first issue gets.

also considered a script that would stream the file line by line.. but i am sketched out by the variety of files there may be, etc

What's an example of a case where that matters? Because of the content-type header that would need to be sent?

Also, what kind of sessioning/authentication are you using?

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.