How can the browser's behavior affect the download process when using PHP to serve files?

The browser's behavior can affect the download process when using PHP to serve files by potentially displaying the file content in the browser instead of prompting the user to download it. To ensure that the file is downloaded instead of displayed, you can set the appropriate headers in the PHP response. 

<?php
$file = 'example.pdf';

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($file).'"');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));

readfile($file);
exit;
?>

Keywords

browser behavior download process PHP serve files error types

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