php force download xml

Question

I am creating an xml file on the fly. When a user generates this file I want it to open up a download file dialog with the content that was generated. There is no actual file because it is just generated through php. Any ideas on how to do this?

Answer 1

This is what worked for me. In readfile('newfile.xml'); make sure to give the path of the file correctly. This php page is called from an html page with anchor tag which says - download:

<?php 
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename="newfile.xml"');
header('Content-type: "text/xml"; charset="utf8"');
readfile('newfile.xml');
?>

source: How do I force the browser to download a file to disk instead of playing or displaying it?