Downloading file from cgi application

[Diez B. Roggisch]

sophie_newbie wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm writing a cgi application in Python that generates a PDF file for
> the user and then allows them to download that file. Currently I'm
> just writing the PDF file to the 'htdocs' directory and giving the
> user a link to this file to download it. But the problem is that
> another user could simply come along and download a file that isn't
> their file by typing the address into the address bar. I don't want to
> delete the file after it is downloaded either because I'd like the
> user to be able to download it again if necessary. Is there any way
> around this problem?

If the user needs to be authenticated, yes. Just encode the username in the
pdf-name (on the FS that is, what name you give the downloaded file is
unrelated).

Then just allow to download the pdf by a user with the right name.

Diez