How to create downloadable link to text file?

Add the following lines to your .htaccess file.

<Files "backup.sql">
ForceType applicaton/octet-stream
Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>

Another option is serving it with in a .php file eg download.php

have this in download.php

    $path = "backup.sql"
    header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");    //

    header("Content-Length: " . filesize($path));    

    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$path);

    readfile($path); 

then

<a href="download.php">Download File</a>

Or you could just use the new HTML5 property download in the anchor tag of your html.

The code will look something like

<a download href="path/to/the/download/file"> Clicking on this link will force download the file</a>

It works on firefox and chrome latest version. Should I mention that I didn't check it in IE? :P