From:	Jay Savage	Date:	Tue Feb 19 08:02:54 2008
Subject:	Re: Send a file

On Feb 19, 2008 7:15 AM, Beginner <dermot@sciencephoto.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to send a file in response to a request but am having
> trouble.
>
> Here's what I have so far. I am not certain what the headers should
> be. I am not getting any more info from my error_log except Premature
> end of script headers.
>
>
> my $s = (stat($file))[7];
>
> my $filename = $user.'.csv';
> seek $fh,0,0;
> print header(-type=>"text/tab-separated-values",-Content_length=>$s,
>         -Content_Disposition=>"attachment;filename=$filename");
> print $fh;
> close($fh);
>
>
> Can anyone offer some advice?
> Thanx,
> Dp.
>

Dermot,

I see a couple of things. First, the correct type should be
application/x-download or application/octet-stream" The file may
*contain* text, but you want the browser to treat the *container* as a
stream, not parse it.

Second, assuming you're following that normal convention of using $fh
to refer to a file handle, "print $fh" will print *to* the filehandle,
not read *from* the filehandle and print the contents to standard
output. See perldoc -f print for more detail.

You probably want something like

    print while (<$fh>);

You could also store the file to an array first, or "slurp" the file,
if you want to eliminate the loop.

HTH,

--jay