NYCPHP Meetup

NYPHP.org

[nycphp-talk] NEW PHundamentals Question - Headers & Downloads

Jeff Siegel - PHundamentals jeff.siegel at nyphp.org
Thu Oct 14 10:01:13 EDT 2004


This email consists of a number of quotes from the different responses 
to the PHundamentals question on headers & downloads. (See: 
http://lists.nyphp.org/pipermail/talk/2004-October/012375.html)
Each quote is followed by a question. When responding, feel free to 
slice up this email as needed but please include the particular 
quote/question you are responding to.

QUOTE No. 1 - Mozilla and file extensions:
"Another gotcha, that I can't resolve, actually involves Mozilla.  For
instance, Mozilla (and derivatives) always append the file extension of
the type of page originally viewed.  What do people do for this?  For
instance, in phpMyAdmin, downloading a .sql file will be saved as a
.sql.php file."

QUESTION FOR QUOTE NO.1: Has anyone resolved the problem mentioned in 
quote no. 1? Has anyone NOT had that problem?



QUOTE NO. 2 - IE, Caching and SSL:
"...but I've run into some tricky problems with IE
and SSL.  Now some would argue that this is a bug, but I think IE is
actually inline with the standard.  Details are at:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q316431&

Basically, when a previous header has been sent to not cache anything,
it won't let you save a file - that actually makes sense.  So, the
workaround, which I've found works all the time, it to replace the
default caching headers (ie, no-cache) with this:

header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate', TRUE);
header('Pragma: ', TRUE);

Next would be to send the standard disposition, type and so forth
headers, per above."

QUESTION FOR QUOTE NO.2: Are there any SSL issues with non-IE browsers?



QUOTE NO. 3 - Using Unknown MIME Type:

"I have read where developers intentionally set an unknown mime type 
when they want to force a download. Does anyone know whether this is 
justified?"

QUESTION FOR QUOTE NO.3 - Any one have any experience with this?



QUOTE NO. 4 - Browser/Header Matrix:

"Has anyone developed a matrix like:

Browser -> Version -> Required Behavior -> Use These Headers?"

QUESTION FOR QUOTE NO.4: Anyone have such a matrix or know of the 
existence of such a matrix?



QUOTE NO. 5: A Black Art?:

"So at the end of the day, I think it's somewhat of a black art.  On
occasion, trying to force a download vs a file open seems impossible,
depending on browser, version, and plugins."

QUESTION FOR QUOTE NO.5: Agree? Disagree? And why?

============
Jeff Siegel



More information about the talk mailing list