What are the best practices for implementing a file download feature in PHP?

When implementing a file download feature in PHP, it is important to set the appropriate headers to indicate that the response is a file download. This includes setting the Content-Type header to the appropriate MIME type for the file being downloaded, as well as setting the Content-Disposition header to indicate that the file should be downloaded as an attachment. Additionally, it is important to read the file contents and output them to the response. 

<?php
// Set the file to be downloaded
$file = 'path/to/file.pdf';

// Set the appropriate headers
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . basename($file) . '"');

// Read the file and output its contents
readfile($file);

Keywords

file download PHP headers content-disposition error handling

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