laravel5.3 generate download (.txt) on the fly

Question

What's the best way to generate a download (in my case of a .txt file) on the fly? By this I mean without storing the file on the server before. For understanding here's what I need to get done:

public function getDesktopDownload(Request $request){

        $txt = "Logs ";

        //offer the content of txt as a download (logs.txt)
        $headers = ['Content-type' => 'text/plain', 'Content-Disposition' => sprintf('attachment; filename="test.txt"'), 'Content-Length' => sizeof($txt)];

        return Response::make($txt, 200, $headers);
}

Answer 1

Try this

public function getDownload(Request $request) {
    // prepare content
    $logs = Log::all();
    $content = "Logs \n";
    foreach ($logs as $log) {
      $content .= $logs->id;
      $content .= "\n";
    }

    // file name that will be used in the download
    $fileName = "logs.txt";

    // use headers in order to generate the download
    $headers = [
      'Content-type' => 'text/plain', 
      'Content-Disposition' => sprintf('attachment; filename="%s"', $fileName),
      'Content-Length' => sizeof($content)
    ];

    // make a response, with the content, a 200 response code and the headers
    return Response::make($content, 200, $headers);
}