This section provides a tutorial example on how to send files to the Web browser as downloads using the Content-disposition header line.
Another way of sending files to the browser is via attachment. The following
ASP page shows you how to do this:
<script language="vbscript" runat="server">
' download.asp
' Copyright (c) 2002 by Dr. Herong Yang
p = request.ServerVariables("QUERY_STRING")
ok = Len(p)>0
if (ok) then
if (InStr(p,".html")>0) then
contentType = "text/html"
elseif (InStr(p,".gif")>0) then
contentType = "image/gif"
elseif (InStr(p,".pdf")>0) then
contentType = "application/pdf"
elseif (InStr(p,".doc")>0) then
contentType = "application/msword"
else
ok = false
end if
end if
r = request.ServerVariables("APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH")
filePath = r & p
if (ok) then
response.Buffer = True
response.Clear
response.ContentType = contentType
response.AddHeader "Content-disposition", _
"attachment; filename="&p
set objStream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
objStream.Open
objStream.Type = 1 'binar type?
objStream.LoadFromFile filePath
response.BinaryWrite objStream.Read
objStream.Close
response.Flush
response.End
else
response.Write "<html><body>Error:<br/>"
response.Write "ApplPhysicalPath = ("&r&")<br/>"
response.Write "QueryString = ("&p&")<br/>"
response.Write "</body></html>"
response.End
end if
</script>
In this page, another header line, "Content-disposition", is added to the response,
in which I am telling the client program that the entity data is an attachment,
with file name specified.
Now try to use IE to request: http://localhost:8080/download.asp?hello.pdf, you
will see IE prompting you to save the attachment instead of calling Adobe Reader
to display the data.
