PHP Download not working with path coming from DB

Question

I have a simple form that, when posted back, calls a function to initiate a download. The path and file name are pulled from the database then I'm using headers to start the download. My code for the download is:

//START DOWNLOAD
header('Content-type: "application/octet-stream"');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$FILE_PATH.$FILE_NAME.'"');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Connection: close") 

In the example above, the $FILE_PATH variable is /downloads/software/ and the $FILE_NAME variable is client-installer.exe. So, what I would expect is a file called client-installer.exe (approximately 70MB) to be downloaded to the client. Instead, I get a file called _downloads_software_client-installer.exe and approximately 10KB.

I thought maybe I needed to urlencode the file path/name but that didn't fix the issue either. So I'm left thinking perhaps I have something wrong with the header but can't seem to find it.

Thank you!

Answer 1

The filename header just denotes what the file should be called. It must contain only a filename, not a path. The internal path on the server's hard disk is irrelevant and of no interest to the client. Your server will have to output the actual file data in the response, the client can't take it from the server given the path.

See readfile.