xlsx fix - on the server vs in php

Question

We have a php application, and xlsx files are getting downloaded as zip files.

I've seen many posts with solutions for handling this - with htaccess, httpd.cond, and mime.types files.

Our files our hosted though, and the host is giving us a hard time about chaging any server (apache on linux) files. He thinks we should do the fix in php.

So my question is:
What is the benefit (if there is one) of making the change in the server configuration files, rather than in php?

Answer 1

Doing it in your PHP script is the best option, because you applications knows best what files it transmits and can set the MIME type header (Content-Type) accordingly.

Answer 2

In this instance the correct answer would be to set the Content-Type in your PHP. xlsx files are zip files and Apache is using file like identification in mod_mime_magic to figure out that this is a zip file and setting the mime type accordingly. If you run them through unzip you'll get a whole load of directories and XML files splattered everywhere.

As you need it to open in Excel, you should be overriding this default behaviour in your PHP.