How to provide a hyperlink to file without revealing path?

I need to provide an href / hyperlink in a web browser to a file, so that the user can open/download it, but NOT provide the full path to the file (for security reasons).

What's the best way to do this?
cdakzAsked:
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Jason C. LevineDon't talk to me.Commented:
Link to a server-side script of some sort that includes the file from another location and sends it back to the user.

Something like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/downloadafile.php

$file_url = 'http://www.yoursite.com/dont/browse/to/this/file.exe';
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary"); 
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . basename($file_url) . "\""); 
readfile($file_url);

Open in new window

cdakzAuthor Commented:
I get the gist, but am familiar with asp.net/c#, so the php isn't clear.

Suggestion on how to do this in C# on ASP.NET? (Sorry I didn't say so in the beginning).
Jason C. LevineDon't talk to me.Commented:
Sorry, I don't work on Windows.  I will add those topics to your question so those Experts will see it.
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David Johnson, CD, MVPOwnerCommented:
use a virtual directory. http::\\sitename\path can point anywhere on that server.
cdakzAuthor Commented:
Jason C. Levine's suggestion pointed me in the right direction, even though it was from the LAMP world. I had in my head to somehow fool an <a href... tag to pull this off, which was wrong.

As it turns out, this is almost trivially simple in the ASP.NET MVC world (after looking in the right direction).

Here are 2 references if anybody else wants to know how to implement this using ASP.NET MVC:
www.prideparrot.com/blog/archive/2012/8/uploading_and_returning_files#how_to_return_a_file_as_response

MSDN's FileResult documentation

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Jason C. LevineDon't talk to me.Commented:
Thanks, cdakz.  Happy that I got you looking in the right direction.
cdakzAuthor Commented:
Selected my solution because it was the ASP.NET MVC solution.
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