text file download code in php - php

Question

I am a new PHP programmer. I am trying to write code to allow users to download text file from my website. I followed the answers to similar questions on this subject and put together this following test program. It did not force the download to go to a file, instead, it sent the content to the screen (in Chrome, IE, Firefox). Could someone point out what I did wrong?
Here is my test code:
<?php
$file = "test.txt";
if(!file_exists($file)) die("I'm sorry, the file doesn't seem to exist.");
$type = filetype($file);
// Send file headers
header("Content-type: $type");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=\"test.txt\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header('Pragma: no-cache');
header('Expires: 0');
// Send the file contents.
set_time_limit(0);
readfile($file);
exit();
?>

Answer 1

You can simply use
$handle = fopen("file.txt", "w");
fwrite($handle, "Shadow ");
fclose($handle);
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename('file.txt'));
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize('file.txt'));
readfile('file.txt');
exit;
Edited , try it on single php page .

Answer 2

This code will display the text file content in the screen, and user can download it as a text plain file:
$file = "test.txt";
if(!file_exists($file)) die("I'm sorry, the file doesn't seem to exist.");
$type = filetype($file);
// Send file headers
header("Content-type: $type");
header('Pragma: no-cache');
header('Expires: 0');
// Send the file contents.
set_time_limit(0);
echo file_get_contents($file);
But this code (by #Drop Shadow) will force browser to show download dialog without displaying anything:
$file = "test.txt";
if(!file_exists($file)) die("I'm sorry, the file doesn't seem to exist.");
$type = filetype($file);
// Send file headers
header("Content-type: $type");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=\"test.txt\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header('Pragma: no-cache');
header('Expires: 0');
// Send the file contents.
set_time_limit(0);
readfile($file);
exit();