I am working with a friend to help develop a simple interface for a backup system he is operating.  Basically, the script displays a secure list of files by filename and each filename is clickable to download the corresponding file.   I have forced the download of files using PHP in the past but the method I used required knowledge of the files type. With this project that method is not feasible as this system will have a wide array of possible file types.

I compiled some resources I found online to create the following simple script that forces the download of any file type with PHP: (Note I have not actually tested it with every possible file type but the ones I did used worked great)

<?PHP
     //BUILD THE FILE INFORMATION
     $file = $filepath . $filename;
 
     //CREATE/OUTPUT THE HEADER
     header("Content-type: application/force-download");
     header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
     header("Content-length: ".filesize($file));
     header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"".basename($file)."\"");
     readfile($file);
?>

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