Sessions and readfile() are not working!

[hstraf]

I'm trying to output a .pdf file to screen.. and I have the following code that does not work:

<?php

header( "Content-Type: application/pdf" );
include('config.php');

session_start();

$dir = '/home3/gridops/reports/henri/TSR/test.pdf';
readfile("$dir");
>?

It does work if I remove the "session_start()" part. However, if I do this then I won't be able to set the $dir variable with my session values..

Anyone have any idea's? Is there a different way to output a .pdf file to screen besides linking to it directly? (I don't want the user to see where the file is located, so I am throwing a bunch of variables into the session and then calling the page that has this script.)

Thanks,
Henri Straforelli

[cokeman]

I'm not sure, but part of me feels that sessions might be like headers and have to be sent before any other content.. does config.php output anything? if so, maybe you could try moving the include() line to after the session_start()...

of course, I might be totally off base here..

[mmj]

Cokeman you are right.

session_start, or some function that implies session_start must occur before the headers are sent to the browser. This enables a cookie to be sent.

It depends what is in your config.php script. Make sure there is no html, including whitespace before and after the <? ?> tags.

[hstraf]

It depends what is in your config.php script. Make sure there is no html, including whitespace before and after the <? ?> tags.

There is no HTML in the config.php script. The sample code I included in my original post actually doesn't work if the include is there or not.

So does this mean it is impossible to use sessions, and still output a pdf file to screen?

[Robo]

session start has to be in front before anything else, so see if this works:

<?php
session_start();
header( "Content-Type: application/pdf" );
include('config.php');

$dir = '/home3/gridops/reports/henri/TSR/test.pdf';
readfile("$dir");

?>

[hstraf]

Nope. That didn't work either.

The pdf file just gets displayed as straight "ascii".. in other words, all I see are the contents of the pdf file. The browser doesn't realize that it is a pdf file format and doesn't call the plug-in, etc..

From what I can see.. it looks like sessions are incompatible with anything that requires header of Content Type.