How can PHP developers ensure that users are prompted to download a file instead of it being displayed in the browser, especially when dealing with different file types?

To ensure that users are prompted to download a file instead of it being displayed in the browser, PHP developers can set the appropriate headers to force the browser to download the file. This can be achieved by setting the Content-Disposition header with the value "attachment" along with specifying the file name and type. 

<?php
$file = 'path/to/your/file.pdf';
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($file).'"');
readfile($file);
exit;
?>

Keywords

PHP Content-Disposition header MIME type download prompt

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