Download a file with php and polymer - php

Question

I'm having some trouble with this one. I have found some helpful scripts on the web and have been modifying them for my needs. However, I can't seem to download a file. It will respond back with the contents of the file but doesn't download it. I am using Polymer 1.0+ for my client side and PHP for my server side. The client side code to download a file is as follows:
<!--THIS IS THE HTML SIDE-->
<iron-ajax
id="ajaxDownloadItem"
url="../../../dropFilesBackend/index.php/main/DownloadItem"
method="GET"
handle-as="document"
last-response="{{downloadResponse}}"
on-response="ajaxDownloadItemResponse">
</iron-ajax>
//THIS IS THE JAVASCRIPT THAT WILL CALL THE "iron-ajax" ELEMENT
downloadItem:function(e){
this.$.ajaxDownloadItem.params = {"FILENAME":this.selectedItem.FILENAME,
"PATH":this.folder};
this.$.ajaxDownloadItem.generateRequest();
},
The server side code is as follows (the url is different because I do some url modification to get to the correct script):
function actionDownloadItem(){
valRequestMethodGet();
$username = $_SESSION['USERNAME'];
if(validateLoggedIn($username)){
$itemName = arrayGet($_GET,"FILENAME");
$path = arrayGet($_GET,"PATH");
$username = $_SESSION['USERNAME'];
$downloadItem = CoreFilePath();
$downloadItem .= "/".$_SESSION['USERNAME']."".$path."".$itemName;
DownloadFile($downloadItem);
}
else {
echo "Not Logged In.";
}
}
function DownloadFile($filePath) {
//ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0); // disable the time limit for this script
//touch($filePath);
//chmod($filePath, 0775);
if ($fd = fopen($filePath, "r")) {
$fsize = filesize($filePath);//this returns 12
$path_parts = pathinfo($filePath);//basename = textfile.txt
$ext = strtolower($path_parts["extension"]);//this returns txt
$header = headerMimeType($ext); //this returns text/plain
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename="'.$path_parts["basename"].'"'); // use 'attachment' to force a file download
header("Content-type: $header");
header("Content-length: $fsize");
header("Cache-control: private"); //use this to open files directly
while(!feof($fd)) {
$buffer = fread($fd, 2048);
echo $buffer;
}
}
fclose ($fd);
}
Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

First you will need the file handle
$pathToSave = '/home/something/something.txt';
$writeHandle = fopen($pathToSave, 'wb');
Then, while you are reading the download, write to the file instead of echoing
fwrite($writeHandle, fread($fd, 2048));
Finally, after writing to the file finished close the handle
fclose($writeHandle);
I neglect the error check, you should implement your own.