in reply to saving data locally in CGI script?

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI;

my $cgi = CGI->new();

sub handle_error {
    print $cgi->header(
        -status => 500,
        -type   => 'text/html',
    );
    print ...;
    exit(0);
}

open(my $fh, '<', 'foo.csv')
    or handle error(...);

print $cgi->header(
    # application/octet-stream might work better
    -type       => 'text/csv',
    -attachment => 'foo.csv',
);

print while <$fh>;

[download]

Of course, you can base the name of the CSV on a CGI parameter or on a session field. Or you can generate it on the fly instead of reading it form disk.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: saving data locally in CGI script?
by Anonymous Monk on Jan 22, 2010 at 23:04 UTC

    Thanks! Your idea made this even more compact:

        my $cgi = CGI->new();
    my $s = "Hi, Mom!\n";
    print $cgi->header(-type => 'text/csv', -attachment => 'filename.c
+sv', -Content-length => length($s));
    print $s;

    [download]

    Is it possible to generate the standard file-open dialog such that the filename can be changed?

[reply]
[d/l]

      To pick the name of the file to which to save? Your browser should do that already.

[reply]

        Correct. The browser prompts to save the file using the (default) filename supplied by the server. Yet the standard file-open dialog (which is different than the one used here...) will allow the user to rename the file. How can I get this functionality?

        Thanks.

[reply]

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