Downloading Excel File

matrixmadhan · #1 (**permalink**) 01-15-2008

Hello All,

Currently working with CGI scripts in perl which involves
a) uploading
b) processing
c) downloading the file back to the user

uploading and processing quite trivial and they are done

Third part is kind of being tricky.
Excel file in binary format is getting displayed in the html page itself and not popping up a download window for downloading file to the client's machine

Code snippet

Code:

my @fileholder;

open(EXCLFILE, "<", $file_path) or die "Unable to download file $file_path\n";
 binmode EXCLFILE;
 @fileholder = <EXCLFILE>;
close (EXCLFILE);

print "Content-Type:application/vnd.ms-excel\n";
print "Content-Disposition:attachment;filename=$file_path\n\n";
print @fileholder;

Any pointers to proceed with this is much appreciated.

Thanks

sysgate · #2 (**permalink**) 01-15-2008

put "application/octet-stream" instead of "vnd.ms-excel" , it should work. Else, look at these thread, it may help.

matrixmadhan · #3 (**permalink**) 01-15-2008

This is completely running over my head.

I did went through the link provided in perlmonks and tried it,
but its refusing to work

Please find the snippet below

Code:

my $cgi = new CGI;

  open(DLFILE, "<$abs_path") || die "Unable to download file $abs_path\n";
  print $cgi->header(
    '-type' => "application/octet-stream; name=$filename",
    '-Content-Disposition' => "attachment; filename=$abs_path",
    '-Content-Transfer-Encoding' => "binary");
    binmode DLFILE;
    print while(<DLFILE>);
  close (DLFILE);

Ex:

Code:

$abs_path = "/home/matrix/file.xls";
$filename = "file.xls";

No way, a download pop up window is up
and all the binary contents of the excel file is displayed as such in the html page.

Any pointers again, much appreciated

sysgate · #4 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008

Code:

use strict;
use CGI qw /:standard /;
my $query = new CGI;
print $query->header(-type=>"application/vnd.ms-excel",-attachment=>"path/file.xls",-Content_length=>" -s path/file.xls");
open (FH, "path/file.xls");
print $_ while <FH>;
close (FH);

- found it on internet, i'm not sure if it's going to work. Strange, that the content type is not honored, even though it's forced to be binary-octet-stream. Another try : setup wrong type like :"bad-file-type" and this should pop-up. Last resort is to put MIME type in apache's config -

Code:

AddType application/vnd.ms-excel .xls

matrixmadhan · #5 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008

Thanks for the reply Sysgate.

I already have the specified MIME type in mime configuration file

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