Change name of audio file for download

Question

I have some mp3 files which are named "my-audio.mp3" but now the client wants the visitor to be able to download and save these files to their desktop. He doesn't like the name with the hyphen and wants them renamed to "MyAudio.mp3". Other than putting the renamed files into their own 'download' folder, how can I make this work on Apache?

Answer 1

You can do this in PHP like so:

<?php
// We set the file type here
header('Content-Type: audio/mpeg');

// un-comment this line if you want to enforce download and comment the line above
// Content-Type "application/force-download"

// It will be called MyAudio.mp3
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="MyAudio.mp3"');

// The MP3 Source
readfile('the-original-filename.mp3');
?>   

Answer 2

Apache can be configured to follow symbolic links. I tested creating a symbolic link for the desired name to the old name. On the command line I did:

ln -s My-Music.mp3 MyMusic.mp3

After which, Apache was happy to serve up the file at either http://localhost/My-Music.mp3 or http://localhost/MyMusic.mp3

To make it work you just have to have the correct option turned on in your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks