Forcing PHP to download file via browser - php

Question

I'm currently trying to make a file download in the user's browser but have so far been unable to make it happen.
I've looked at other answers on stackoverflow.com and so far haven't found anything that has solved my problem.
My process is as follows:
I create the filename and filepath, then set headers:
$date = new DateTime();
$currentDateTime = $date->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");
$filename = "{$name}_{$currentDateTime}.csv";
$filepath = $rootfull . "/{$filename}";
// Set headers
header('Content-Type: application/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filepath . '"');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filepath));
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header('Pragma: no-cache');
I then create the file and start writing to it:
// Write header
fputcsv($output, $header);
fputcsv($output, array()); // Empty line
// Write column names
$column_headers = array_keys(array_flip($columns));
foreach ($data as $row)
{
fputcsv($output, $row);
}
echo readfile($filepath);
die();
The file gets generated and written to the specified location (in this case /var/www/<project>/<filename>.csv without any indication to the user that anything has happened. No download dialog, nothing.
If anyone can spot a problem with my code or my process, please point it out and preferably suggest a better/alternative way of doing it, any help at all is welcome at this point.

Answer 1

If no benefit (poor mans cache) to writing to disk then maybe something like this writing to buffer:
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/csv; charset=utf-8');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="dump_' . date('Ymd') . '.csv"');
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
$this->outputCSV($results);
exit(); //->
public function outputCSV($data, $useKeysForHeaderRow = true)
{
if ($useKeysForHeaderRow) {
array_unshift($data, array_keys(reset($data)));
}
$outputBuffer = fopen("php://output", 'w');
foreach($data as $v) {
fputcsv($outputBuffer, $v);
}
fclose($outputBuffer);
}
?>