Need help with downloading

gl2103 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello everybody, I'm really new to PERL and CGI and really need some help. I'm trying to wrote some script to force download files from server. It looked not too hard but I stocked there. I always have the following messages when opening files:
xls: "This file is not in recognizable format"
pdf: "There was an error opening this document.The file is damaged..."
All files are exist and can be opened with no problem. I don't know what to do.Please help. Thanks.
Here is my code:
------------------------------------------------------
....

#dynamically determine
$outf="C:/folder1/test.xls;
#dynamically determine 
$filenm="test.xls";
print "Content-Type: application/octet-stream\n";
print "Content-Disposition:attachment;filename=$filenm","\n\n";
print "Content-Length: $no_bytes","\n\n";
            open(FILE,"<$outf");
               while(<FILE>){print;}
             close (FILE);
[download]

-------------------------------------------------

Updated Steve_p - added code tags

Comment on Need help with downloading Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Need help with downloading by Fletch (Bishop) on Apr 18, 2005 at 17:54 UTC
From the looks of things you're on Wintendo so a `perldoc -f binmode` may be helpful.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Need help with downloading by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 18, 2005 at 17:58 UTC
aye, adding `binmode(FILE); binmode(STDOUT);` after the `open` should fix it. Update: Typo fixed.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Need help with downloading by ambs (Pilgrim) on Apr 18, 2005 at 18:04 UTC
binmode on both :-\| Alberto Simões	[reply]
Re^4: Need help with downloading by cog (Parson) on Apr 18, 2005 at 18:05 UTC
Re^2: Need help with downloading by gl2103 (Novice) on Apr 18, 2005 at 18:01 UTC
Where do you want to do this? Sorry for asking a stupid things.Thanks	[reply]
Re^3: Need help with downloading by gl2103 (Novice) on Apr 18, 2005 at 18:10 UTC
I'm a little confused. Could you please change this for me? Thanks ------------old---------------------- open(FILE,"<$outf"); while(<FILE>){print;} close (FILE);	[reply]
Re^4: Need help with downloading by gl2103 (Novice) on Apr 18, 2005 at 18:23 UTC
Re: Need help with downloading by eibwen (Friar) on Apr 18, 2005 at 19:10 UTC
A quick google search returned a PHP varient. Transcribing it into perl and extending the functionality: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use File::Type; my $file = $0; print "Pragma: public\n"; # reportedly required print 'Content-Type: ', File::Type->new()->mime_type($file) \|\| 'applic +ation/force-download', "\n"; print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=$file\n"; print "Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\n"; print 'Content-Length: ', -s $file, "\n\n"; open(FILE, "$file"); binmode $_ foreach (FILE, STDOUT); print foreach (<FILE>); close(FILE);` [download] Verified to work with Apache on Linux. UPDATE: Removed unnecessary variables	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Need help with downloading by ambs (Pilgrim) on Apr 18, 2005 at 17:44 UTC
Never tried to do this, but my instinct says it should be: `print "Content-Disposition:attachment;filename=$filenm","\n";` [download] and not `print "Content-Disposition:attachment;filename=$filenm","\n\n";` [download] Alberto Simões	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Need help with downloading by gl2103 (Novice) on Apr 18, 2005 at 17:49 UTC
Thanks Alberto.I tried but it still doesn't work	[reply]


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