Ajax call to download file returned from RESTful service

Question

I am fairly new to AJAX. I am sending a request to server using AJAX. The service returns a text file. But no download box appears when data is returned. The rest service that returns the file is as follows:

@Path("/examples")
public class ExampleCodesRest {


    @POST
    @Path("/getcode")
    @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
    public Response getCodes(@Context ServletContext context){

        String in=context.getRealPath("/WEB-INF/reports.jrxml");
        File file=new File(in);

        ResponseBuilder response = Response.ok((Object) file);
        response.header("Content-Disposition",
            "attachment; filename=\"file_from_server.log\"");
        return response.build();

    }
}

My AJAX call is as follows:

 $('a#link').click(function(event){
    event.preventDefault();
    $.ajax({
        url: '/reports/rest/examples/getcode',
        type: 'POST'
    });
});

The file downloads successful without AJAX. With AJAX, it doesn't download the file.Please advice.

possible duplicate of [Handle file download from ajax post](http://stackoverflow.com/a/23797348/148271) — IsmailS, Jan 19 '15 at 15:14

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '12 at 13:02

18

Advice is simple: you cannot download files via AJAX - it's a security policy. I mean you can download the data, but you can't save it to disk from JavaScript side.

If you want to download a file on click, then you can just add href to you a tag. Or open a new window with file's URL.

answered Oct 18 '12 at 13:02

freakish

54,167
9
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169

Thanks for the reply. After some research it seems that at most I can open a window to show the contents but I cannot save it to disk. – Mono Jamoon Oct 18 '12 at 13:20

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 18 '12 at 13:04

A) you don't have a callback to receive data back
b) Add error callback to you code so you can see if there are receiving errors after the call:

    $.ajax({
    url: '/spaconsole/rest/examples/getcode',
    type: 'POST'
    success: function (data) {
        console.log('ok');
    },
    error: function (xhr) {
      console.log(xhr);
    }
    });

Edit: This is if you want to display the text in page. If you want to download the file, this is not the way, you cannot use ajax

Thanks for the reply. I am getting the data from the server end but there is no prompt to save the data on-to disk. — Mono Jamoon, Oct 18 '12 at 13:05

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

1

You can't do that directly from AJAX, but you can get around it by having an iframe that initiates the download. See Ajax File download Issue for a discussion.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

1
1

answered Oct 18 '12 at 13:05

Palpatim

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Ajax call to download file returned from RESTful service

3 Answers3

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