CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpjqueryajaxpostdownload
Johnson Doe
Johnson Doe

Reputation: 179

Sending data through post to php then downloading

I have a theme building website that creates a theme for another project which isn't relevant. I have a few different inputs that have data in them. I am able to get the data and store them in variables. When I click the download button I want the variables to send to a .php file and then download that file. I believe I am sending it ok, but downloading the data seems to be the difficult part.

 $("#download-theme").click(function() {
    $(function() {
        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: 'download.php',
            data: ({
                value: value
            }),
            success: function(data) {
                alert(data);
            }
        });
    });
});

I believe that this sends it to the download.php file as I get the alert with the correct value. What I want to do next is to download the data of the php file as a .txt file. Maybe i'm over complicating it by sending it to the php file i'm not sure.

All in all, I want to get the data from the variable put it in a file, and have the user download it.

EDIT: I saw quentino response and it works, but I have 5 inputs that I would need to be transferred by one submit button.

<input type="text" name="variable1" />
<input type="text" name="variable2" />
<input type="text" name="variable3" />
<input type="text" name="variable4" />
<input type="text" name="variable5" />
<input type="submit" value="send"/>

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3501

Answers (4)

Satyapal Sharma
Satyapal Sharma

Reputation: 291

Although the question is bit ambiguous. I am answering what I understand from your question.

Yes you can get a file using Ajax and you are doing it fine. To make browser to download a file you need to pass some headers along with it so that the browser can understand it that way

Use following code to pass headers using PHP (if you are using it server side)

ob_clean();
flush();
$file = "somefile.xlsx";
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file));
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
readfile($file);

Or you can also pass the same headers using javaScript in success function of Ajax

Upvotes: 0

andrea_19920611
andrea_19920611

Reputation: 76

I don't know if it's exactly what you need, but i try.

function ajaxrequest(){
    $(isset($_POST['yourfirstdata']){
        $yourfirstdata=$_POST['yourfirstdata'];
    }
    $myfile = fopen($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/newfile.txt", "w");
    $txt = "$yourfirstdata";
    fwrite($myfile, $txt);
    exit;
}

this is the possible code to create the file txt. i think that it's necessarily saving on server. 

success: function(data) {
     alert(data);
        var a = $("<a>")
        .prop("href", "root-of-your-newfile/newfile.txt")
        .prop("download", "newfile.txt")
        .appendTo("body");
        a[0].click();
        a.remove();
    }

Simply in the 'success' of ajax call, you download the file create.

Upvotes: 0

quentino
quentino

Reputation: 1201

Are you sure you must use ajax? You can do that using hidden form, set data in onclick event and send it. Simple one file example:

<?php
if (isset($_POST['data'])) {
    header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"test.txt.\"");
    echo $_POST['data'];
} else {
?>
<html>
    <body>
        <form method="post"/>
            <input type="text" name="data" />
            <input type="submit" value="send"/>
        </form>
    </body>
</html>
<?php } ?>

Upvotes: 2

James McClelland
James McClelland

Reputation: 555

From what I have read there is no real way of pulling content through ajax into a downloaded format. I have tested with using Content Disposition and it still does not work.

If you check out: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20830337/3706559

They explain that by changing the window URL you trigger the download. Since the download page doesn't actually have any text content it just has the download it wont actually redirect your user it will just download

Upvotes: 0

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