PHP send stream to browser as zip archive - php

Question

I am making a call(PHP server) to an API and I can confirm that I am getting a response, my code at the point where I know I am getting a response is:
$binaryF = $rsObject->makeCall('get', "/JobData/{$_GET["jID"]}", "?format=bin");
//header("Pragma: public"); // required
//header("Content-Type: application/zip");
//header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=ss.zip");
//header("Content-Length: " . filesize($binaryF.length));
//header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
file_put_contents('C:\ss.zip', $binaryF);
If I keep the code as is and click on the link that takes me to the page with this code on it, ss.zip is created and I open it and confirm that it has the correct content. The data is coming from an API call on the first line and is basically a zip package. If I remove the comments and comment out the file_put_contents line then the browser opens a file save dialog box but if I save it the archive is 0 bytes?
How do I send the content to a browser after retrieving it from the api call? I do not want to save it to disk first, I want to send it to the browser making the request directly.
Thank you
Jack
Ok. I changed it to:
header("Pragma: public"); // required
header("Content-Type: application/zip");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=ss.zip");
header("Content-Length: " . strlen($binaryF));
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
and now it opens the file save. I save it and it is 8 K but when I try t oopen it I get a message of: "Windows cannot open the folder" It complains that the zip is invalid? At least I am getting somewhere, thanks for the help so far!

Answer 1

Try (untested):
header('Content-type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=ss.zip');
echo $binaryF;

Answer 2

$binaryF would need to be a string value for the filepath to the file you are trying to serve up in order for filesize() to work.
You can use strlen() to get the filesize for use in the ContentLength header.
You of course still need to actually output the file to the client browser.

Answer 3

I had some similar problems with PDF's, for me the Content-Length couldn't be calculated correctly with strlen() because it doesn't support multibyte-characters.
instead try this:
header("Content-Length: " . mb_strlen($binaryF));
See the documentation for more detailed information: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mb-strlen.php

Answer 4

Ok, #zerkms helped me by pointing out that I should use: strlen($binaryF) instead of filesize($binaryF.length) He helped me in a chat session by telling me to open the zip archive(with something simple like notepad) that I did get with file_put_contents('C:\ss.zip', $binaryF); This showed that what was produced was only partially correct, there was some HTML content that slipped into the response of the actual call. So all credit goes to #zerkms, thanks.
What worked? the following worked for me:
header("Pragma: public"); // required
header("Content-Type: application/zip");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=ss.zip");
header("Content-Length: " . filesize($binaryF.length));
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
echo $binaryF