Downloading file from FileField in Django with a HTTP link in a HTML file

Question

I create a link that when a user press it, it will download a pdf file from the media folder in Django to the users machine.

I tried different methods but all were wrong for me. It tells me that the file can not be found, or the code is running but the file is corrupted.

My Html link:

<td>  <a href="/download/">Download</a></td>

My url pattern links into a view:

url(r'^download/$', views.DownloadPdf),

My FileField is like this:

upload_pdf = models.FileField()

Following snippet code is the view that downloads a corrupted pdf:

def DownloadPdf(request):

filename = '/home/USER/PycharmProjects/MyProject/media/Invoice_Template.pdf'
response = HttpResponse(content_type='application/pdf')
fileformat = "pdf"
response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment;
filename=thisismypdf'.format(fileformat)
return response

So, what I have to do to make it working ?

You should serve your `media` folder with you webserver. In development the development server will do this task. Please read https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/howto/static-files/ for details. — Klaus D., Nov 10 '16 at 09:22

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 10 '16 at 09:58

1

with open(os.path.join(settings.MEDIA_ROOT, 'Invoice_Template.pdf'), 'rb') as fh:
    response = HttpResponse(fh.read(), content_type="application/pdf")
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=invoice.pdf'
    return response

answered Nov 10 '16 at 09:58

Sergey Gornostaev

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This reads the whole thing into memory, it's better to use a FileResponse or let the webserver handle sending it. – RemcoGerlich Nov 10 '16 at 10:04
@RemcoGerlich yes, you're right, but I think Vaios Lk must understand simple things at first. – Sergey Gornostaev Nov 10 '16 at 10:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 10 '16 at 10:19

1

@Sergey Gornostaev 's code just work perfect, but i post below my code because it is a aproach in a differect way.

I correct a little bit my code:

def DownloadPdf(request):
    path_to_file = '/home/USER/PycharmProjects/MyProject/media /Invoice_Template.pdf'
    f = open(path_to_file, 'r')
    myfile = File(f)
    response = HttpResponse(myfile, content_type='application/pdf')
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=filename'
    return response

But only in pdf file ( works with txt files ) gives me that error:

'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 10

edited Nov 10 '16 at 10:19

Sergey Gornostaev

7,596
3
27
39

answered Nov 10 '16 at 10:13

Vaios Lk

51
1
10

Because you open the file as text but pdf is binary. Change 'r' to 'rb' in `open`. – Sergey Gornostaev Nov 10 '16 at 10:20
Works that too! help me a lot to understand this all. thnx man. – Vaios Lk Nov 10 '16 at 10:24

Downloading file from FileField in Django with a HTTP link in a HTML file

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