Before we continue, I just want you to know that by "force download" I mean the DOWNLOAD and SAVE as box appears, not upload files to their computer without them knowing.

I have a directory of files containing nearly all types of files (sounds, images, text, html, exes) and I want to force a download for that link when they click on the link for that file. I've been told 'application/octet-stream' is how you force ANY file to download rather than load in the screen (like images typically load to screen, right?).

The link forces a download right now, but it tries to download the CGI script itself without the extension instead of the file I'm telling it to. It's requesting action on a file "filemanager" instead of let's say image.gif or sound.wav. Does anyone see where I went wrong? I am linking to in like <a href="filemanager.cgi?dl=$_">download!</a> and $_ does indeed contain what I expect it to. I've done testing to be sure my variable contains what it should, and it does.

Where did I go wrong? 

# $dl_file is absolute path to uploaded directory where files are kept
my $download = url_param('dl');

if ($download ne "")
{
  if (exists $uploadedfiles{$download})
  {


     my($file, $type, $time, $size) = split(/::/, $uploadedfiles{$down
+load});
     my $load_file = join("", $dl_file, $file);

     print header(-type=>'application/octet-stream',
                  -attachment=>"$load_file",
                  -expires=>'-1d');
     print start_html);
     print end_html;
     exit;
  }
  else
  {
     print header, start_html("ERROR");
     print qq(<center>Does not exist!</center>);

     print end_html;

     exit;
  }
}

[download]

In reply to Force download -- Repost by Anonymous Monk

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