setting the filename for a downloaded file in a rails application

Question

I have a controller action that allows a user to download a file with an extension of .ppt . It\'s not really a powerpoint binary, just an xml-ish format that powerpoint can

Answer 1

Ok. This is an answer for a very old question, but as of Rails 3.2 the most simple way is to set it like:

respond_to do |format|
  format.html # index.html.erb
  format.json { render json: @product }
  format.csv { send_data @product.to_csv, :filename => "New-Product-filename.csv" }
  format.xls 
end

Source API Doc

Answer 2

A possible example:

def show
    @item = Item.find(params[:id])
    respond_to do |format|
        format.html # show.html.erb
        format.ppt {
            response.headers['Content-Disposition'] = "attachment; filename=\"#{@item.filename}.ppt\""
        } # show.ppt.erb
        format.xml  { render :xml => @item }
    end
end

Answer 3

You could use send_data:

send_data pptdata, :filename => 'your_file_name.ppt', 
   :disposition => 'inline', :type => "multipart/related"

Another advantage of this is you can use x-sendfile, so that you're mongrel/thin isn't waiting while the client downloads the data.

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Another option would be to have a route like:

/elements/3/files/foo.ppt

Then in your show method for the FilesController you can send whatever the id parameter would be.