php Force Download not Prompting for Download - php

Question

Update
Just found out from my error logs readfile() has been disabled for security reasons Any alternatives instead of readfile()? Will fopen or fread work with zip files?
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My script:
<?php
$str = "some blah blah blah blah";
file_put_contents('abc.txt', $str); // file is being created
create_zip(array('abc.txt'), 'abc.zip'); // zip file is also being created
// now creating headers for downloading that zip
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=abc.zip");
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream; charset=UTF-8");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Pragma: public");
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary'); // added this line as per suggestion
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize("abc.zip")); // added this line as per suggestion
readfile("abc.zip");
//echo 'do something'; // just for testing purpose to see if code is running till the end
exit;
When I run the above script, I get a blank page (No download prompt). When I uncomment the "do something" line, I get that on the screen. So the script is running till the last line.
I also put error_reporting(E_ALL) at the top of the page but nothing is showing up.
What am I missing here?

Answer 1

Try adding Content-Length headers.
See PHP readfile() documentation for a full example.

Answer 2

One alternative to readfile() would be to echo the link to the ZIP file itself where people can simply click on it and will then be prompted to save the file.
Using: echo "<a href='$filename'>File download</a>";
PHP
<?php
$str = 'some blah blah blah blah';
$zip = new ZipArchive();
$filename = "abc.zip";
if ($zip->open($filename, ZIPARCHIVE::CREATE)==TRUE) {
$zip->addFromString("abc.txt", $str);
$zip->close();
}
echo "<a href='$filename'>File download</a>";
exit();
?>
This is usually the way to ZIP a file then open up a prompt to save file as...
<?php
ob_start();
$str = 'some blah blah blah blah';
$zip = new ZipArchive();
$filename = "abc.zip";
if ($zip->open($filename, ZIPARCHIVE::CREATE)!==TRUE) {
exit("cannot open <$filename>\n");
}
$zip->addFromString("abc.txt", $str);
$zip->close();
header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: public");
header("Content-Description: File Transfer");
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"".$filename."\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
clearstatcache();
header("Content-Length: ".filesize('abc.zip'));
ob_flush();
readfile('abc.zip');
?>