Is there a way to force the user to download a file from a href link rather than to open it in a browser window?

Question

Basically I wrote a script that generates a xml file based on user input. After the file is generated a download link appears like so:

Answer 1

If you happen to be using Apache for your web server, and you always want to force downloading of XML files, there is a more efficient way to do what @chigley suggested. Just add the following to a .htaccess file.

ForceType application/xml
Header set Content-Disposition attachment