Force "charset=x-user-defined'" on jQuery Ajax Post - javascript

I am trying to call a Hessian web service from a Javascript application, but I'm having issues parsing the response, since jQuery is treating the response as text and stripping the first bytes of it.
In my research, I have found out that you need to set the charset as 'charset=x-user-defined' in order to the browser leave my bytes as is. But, according the ajax docs:
Sending Data to the Server
By default, Ajax requests are sent using the GET HTTP method. If the
POST method is required, the method can be specified by setting a
value for the type option. This option affects how the contents of the
data option are sent to the server. POST data will always be
transmitted to the server using UTF-8 charset, per the W3C
XMLHTTPRequest standard.
And indeed, the charset is not changing regardless of the settings I used. I have tried the following, separately and all at once, with no luck
$.ajax({
type : 'POST',
url : url,
timeout : 3000,
data : parameters,
contentType : "x-application/hessian; charset=x-user-defined'",
mimeType: 'text/plain; charset=x-user-defined',
headers: {
Accept : "text/plain; charset=x-user-defined",
"Content-Type": "text/plain; charset=x-user-defined"
},
beforeSend : function(xhr) {
xhr.overrideMimeType("text/plain; charset=x-user-defined");
}
})
Also I tried to mess around with the data converters and custom contenttypes defined in jQuery, with no succes.
It appears that as per the standard, I will not be able to do this. It works with GET but not with POST, and the Hessian protocol requires POST.
Do you have any ideas? Or do I need to start to build my XHR method form scratch?

Turns out that I was making a silly mistake somewhere else. But anyhow, I found a sweet way for handling binary data on request and responses, from here.
define(function() {
// Do setup work here
function configurationException(message) {
throw new Error(message + " missing from configuration object");
}
return {
post : function(config) {
if (config) {
var url = config.url || configurationException("url");
var done = config.done || configurationException("callback function");
var timeout = config.timeout || 10000;
var data;
if (config.data) {
data = config.data;
} else {
data = null;
console.warn('No data is specified in binaryPost');
}
var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open("POST", url, true);
request.responseType = "arraybuffer";
request.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "x-application/hessian;");
request.onload = function(oEvent) {
var arrayBuffer = request.response; // Note: not oReq.responseText
if (arrayBuffer) {
var byteArray = new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer);
done(byteArray);
}
};
request.send(data);
} else {
throw new Error("Configuration object is missing");
}
}
};
});
Hope you find it useful

Related

how to get the filesize of an external image with javascript on front end before loading [duplicate]

Basically, I want to figure out whether I should download a file using AJAX, depending on how large the filesize is.
I guess this question could also be rephrased as: How do I get only the header of an ajax request?
EDIT: ultima-rat0 in the comments told me of two questions that had already been asked that apparently are the same as this one. They are very similar, but they both want jQuery. I want a non-jQuery solution to this.
You can get XHR response header data manually:
http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest/#the-getresponseheader()-method
This function will get the filesize of the requested URL:
function get_filesize(url, callback) {
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("HEAD", url, true); // Notice "HEAD" instead of "GET",
// to get only the header
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (this.readyState == this.DONE) {
callback(parseInt(xhr.getResponseHeader("Content-Length")));
}
};
xhr.send();
}
get_filesize("http://example.com/foo.exe", function(size) {
alert("The size of foo.exe is: " + size + " bytes.");
});
Sometimes HEAD can act differently than GET so I suggest something like this that aborts the request after getting Content-Length header:
new Promise(resolve => {
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('GET', '/a.bin', true);
xhr.onreadystatechange = () => {
resolve(+xhr.getResponseHeader("Content-Length"));
xhr.abort();
};
xhr.send();
}).then(console.log);
If HEAD request is not possible:
The solution Ebrahim did only not work in firefox for me because context-length was not available for aborted request in firefox. So I used 'onprogress' event instead of 'onreadystatechange' event:
new Promise(
(resolve, reject) => {
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('GET', url, true);
xhr.onprogress = (event) => {
if (event.lengthComputable) {
resolve(event.total);
} else {
reject(new Error('No content-length available'));
}
xhr.abort();
};
xhr.send();
}
);
1) If only headers are needed, 'HEAD' should be always preferred over 'GET' because of a simple but not widely known detail: Even if you use 'GET' and immediately abort on readyState === 2 (as suggested by other answers), you will have already received not only the headers, but the full first chunk of information (headers + part of the body) that can vary in size, but usually transfer size will be at least doubled unnecessarily. Using 'HEAD' instead, you can be sure that only headers will be transferred.
2) Content-Length header must be exposed by 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' to be accessible client-side. If you are dealing with multiple origin resources and you are not sure if Content-Length has been exposed, to prevent exceptions, you can check that, inside an event handler, like this (or other many different ways):
let contentLength = null;
if (checkHeaders(e.target, ['*','Content-Length'])) {
// YOU CAN ACCESS HEADER
contentLength = parseInt(e.target.getResponseHeader("Content-Length"));
} else {
// YOU CAN NOT ACCESS HEADER
console.log('Content-Length NOT AVAILABLE');
}
function checkHeaders(request, headers) {
return (headers.some(function (elem) {
return (request.getResponseHeader("Access-Control-Expose-Headers").includes(elem));
}));
}
3) Content-Length header IS NOT forbidden when any type of encoding is applied (as suggested in some comments). But, be careful that Content-Length will be usually the size of the decoded body (even if it should not). This can be prevented in many different ways, but it is a server-side consideration.

Javascript send post data in asynchronous environment

So my Problem is, that I get data from another server and im trying to send this received data to the same url to be able to retreive the data in PHP. I tried it with fetch(), $.post(), $.ajax(). Every time my xhr request is being cancelled by the browser for some unknown reason. Here is my current code:
function generateCodes()
{
var someVAR = document.getElementById("length").value;
var someResult = createDataPromise("someVAR=" + someVAR);
someResult.then((data) =>
{
var jsonData = JSON.stringify(data);
$.ajax(
{
url: "sameURL",
method: "post",
data: jsonData,
success: function(data)
{
console.log(data);
}
});
});
someResult.catch((error) =>
{
console.error("Server responded with error: " + error);
});
}
function createDataPromise(data)
{
return new Promise((resolve, reject) =>
{
const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", "externalServer");
xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
xhr.onload = () => resolve(JSON.parse(xhr.responseText));
xhr.onerror = () => reject(xhr.statusText);
xhr.send(data);
});
}
Is there any other possible solution to access the javascript object in PHP? (It is not possible to convert the varible because the javascript is in a pure js file)
It's possible that the browser is blocking your request because of CORS. Modifying your request to be CORS compliant or making sure the remote response includes an Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * header would fix this.
Making sure your request is considered a simple request would eliminate the possibility that it is being denied by a preflight request since you only need to send data and not receive it back in the javascript.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Access-Control-Allow-Origin
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS

Correct content-type for sending this AJAX Post data

I am having problem sending base64 image data using ajax post
I think I have the wrong value for Content-Type but have tried application/json, text/json and image/jpeg without any success
Javascript
function sendFormData(fD)
{
var urls = fD.get('urls');
console.log('urls', urls);
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('POST', '/editsongs.update_artwork');
alert(urls);
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "image/jpeg");
xhr.send(urls);
}
Browser console shows
["data:image/jpeg;base64,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…
Java Server code
public String updateArtwork(Request request, Response response)
{
System.out.println("Received artwork");
for(String s:request.queryParams())
{
System.out.println("---"+s);
}
System.out.println("ReadParms");
return "";
}
just outputs
Received artwork
ReadParms
Updated to Send as Form Instead
// Once we got everything, time to retrieve our objects
function sendData()
{
var fD = new FormData();
// send Files data directly
var files = imgList.filter(
function isFile(obj)
{
return obj.type === 'file';
}
);
files.forEach(
function appendToFD(obj)
{
fD.append('files[]', obj.file);
}
);
// for elems, we will need to grab the data from the server
var elems = imgList.filter(
function isElem(obj)
{
return obj.type === "element";
}
);
var urls = elems.map(
function grabURL(obj)
{
return obj.element.src;
}
);
if (urls.length)
fD.append('urls', JSON.stringify(urls));
sendFormData(fD);
};
function sendFormData(fD)
{
// but here we will just log the formData's content
var files = fD.getAll('files[]');
console.log('files: ', files);
var urls = fD.get('urls');
console.log('urls', urls);
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('POST', '/editsongs.update_artwork');
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
xhr.send(fD);
}
then on server I have
public String updateArtwork(Request request, Response response)
{
System.out.println("Received artwork");
for(String s:request.queryParams())
{
System.out.println("***"+s);
System.out.println(request.queryParams(s));
}
System.out.println("ReadParms");
return "";
}
and its outputs
Received artwork
***-----------------------------330219842643
Content-Disposition: form-data; name
"urls"
["data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAkGBxMSEhUSExIWFhUXFxgXGBcYFRgXFxkdGBcWGBgYFx0YHSggHR0lHRkYITEhJSkrLi4uFyA1ODMtNygtLisBCgoKDg0OFQ8PFSsZFRkrLSstLSstKysrLS03KystLSstKy03LSstLSstNzc3KysrLS0tKysrKysrKysrKysrK//AABEIAKoBKQMBIgACEQEDEQH...."]
-----------------------------330219842643--
ReadParms
So I'm now getting the data but I don't understand really understand how to parse the Content-Disposition part in Java.
This code wasn't originally written by me, as you can see the FormData is constructed it doesnt come from an actual form. My first attempt was to try and extract from FormData and send in different way, an alternative would be to not store in FormData in the first place but dont know how to do this.
Update 2
Tried just sending first url rather than formdata or an arrya of urls, because actually there is only ever one url.But it just doesnt work, nothing received by server ?
function sendFormData(urls)
{
console.log('urls', urls[0]);
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('POST', '/editsongs.update_artwork');
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "text/json");
alert(JSON.stringify(urls[0]));
xhr.send(JSON.stringify(urls[0]));
}
You are trying to view data in the body using queryParams(), which will give you the query params that are located in the url.
Load data from the request body using body().

Save texts from textarea as file and force browser to download [duplicate]

I have a javascript app that sends ajax POST requests to a certain URL. Response might be a JSON string or it might be a file (as an attachment). I can easily detect Content-Type and Content-Disposition in my ajax call, but once I detect that the response contains a file, how do I offer the client to download it? I've read a number of similar threads here but none of them provide the answer I'm looking for.
Please, please, please do not post answers suggesting that I shouldn't use ajax for this or that I should redirect the browser, because none of this is an option. Using a plain HTML form is also not an option. What I do need is to show a download dialog to the client. Can this be done and how?
Don't give up so quickly, because this can be done (in modern browsers) using parts of the FileAPI:
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('POST', url, true);
xhr.responseType = 'blob';
xhr.onload = function () {
if (this.status === 200) {
var blob = this.response;
var filename = "";
var disposition = xhr.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
var filenameRegex = /filename[^;=\n]*=((['"]).*?\2|[^;\n]*)/;
var matches = filenameRegex.exec(disposition);
if (matches != null && matches[1]) filename = matches[1].replace(/['"]/g, '');
}
if (typeof window.navigator.msSaveBlob !== 'undefined') {
// IE workaround for "HTML7007: One or more blob URLs were revoked by closing the blob for which they were created. These URLs will no longer resolve as the data backing the URL has been freed."
window.navigator.msSaveBlob(blob, filename);
} else {
var URL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;
var downloadUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
if (filename) {
// use HTML5 a[download] attribute to specify filename
var a = document.createElement("a");
// safari doesn't support this yet
if (typeof a.download === 'undefined') {
window.location.href = downloadUrl;
} else {
a.href = downloadUrl;
a.download = filename;
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
}
} else {
window.location.href = downloadUrl;
}
setTimeout(function () { URL.revokeObjectURL(downloadUrl); }, 100); // cleanup
}
}
};
xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
xhr.send($.param(params, true));
Or if using jQuery.ajax:
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: url,
data: params,
xhrFields: {
responseType: 'blob' // to avoid binary data being mangled on charset conversion
},
success: function(blob, status, xhr) {
// check for a filename
var filename = "";
var disposition = xhr.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
var filenameRegex = /filename[^;=\n]*=((['"]).*?\2|[^;\n]*)/;
var matches = filenameRegex.exec(disposition);
if (matches != null && matches[1]) filename = matches[1].replace(/['"]/g, '');
}
if (typeof window.navigator.msSaveBlob !== 'undefined') {
// IE workaround for "HTML7007: One or more blob URLs were revoked by closing the blob for which they were created. These URLs will no longer resolve as the data backing the URL has been freed."
window.navigator.msSaveBlob(blob, filename);
} else {
var URL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;
var downloadUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
if (filename) {
// use HTML5 a[download] attribute to specify filename
var a = document.createElement("a");
// safari doesn't support this yet
if (typeof a.download === 'undefined') {
window.location.href = downloadUrl;
} else {
a.href = downloadUrl;
a.download = filename;
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
}
} else {
window.location.href = downloadUrl;
}
setTimeout(function () { URL.revokeObjectURL(downloadUrl); }, 100); // cleanup
}
}
});
Create a form, use the POST method, submit the form - there's no need for an iframe. When the server page responds to the request, write a response header for the mime type of the file, and it will present a download dialog - I've done this a number of times.
You want content-type of application/download - just search for how to provide a download for whatever language you're using.
I faced the same issue and successfully solved it. My use-case is this.
"Post JSON data to the server and receive an excel file.
That excel file is created by the server and returned as a response to the client. Download that response as a file with custom name in browser"
$("#my-button").on("click", function(){
// Data to post
data = {
ids: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
};
// Use XMLHttpRequest instead of Jquery $ajax
xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
var a;
if (xhttp.readyState === 4 && xhttp.status === 200) {
// Trick for making downloadable link
a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(xhttp.response);
// Give filename you wish to download
a.download = "test-file.xls";
a.style.display = 'none';
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
}
};
// Post data to URL which handles post request
xhttp.open("POST", excelDownloadUrl);
xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
// You should set responseType as blob for binary responses
xhttp.responseType = 'blob';
xhttp.send(JSON.stringify(data));
});
The above snippet is just doing following
Posting an array as JSON to the server using XMLHttpRequest.
After fetching content as a blob(binary), we are creating a downloadable URL and attaching it to invisible "a" link then clicking it.
Here we need to carefully set few things at the server side. I set few headers in Python Django HttpResponse. You need to set them accordingly if you use other programming languages.
# In python django code
response = HttpResponse(file_content, content_type="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet")
Since I download xls(excel) here, I adjusted contentType to above one. You need to set it according to your file type. You can use this technique to download any kind of files.
What server-side language are you using? In my app I can easily download a file from an AJAX call by setting the correct headers in PHP's response:
Setting headers server-side
header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
header("Pragma: public");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
// The optional second 'replace' parameter indicates whether the header
// should replace a previous similar header, or add a second header of
// the same type. By default it will replace, but if you pass in FALSE
// as the second argument you can force multiple headers of the same type.
header("Cache-Control: private", false);
header("Content-type: " . $mimeType);
// $strFileName is, of course, the filename of the file being downloaded.
// This won't have to be the same name as the actual file.
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"{$strFileName}\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: " . mb_strlen($strFile));
// $strFile is a binary representation of the file that is being downloaded.
echo $strFile;
This will in fact 'redirect' the browser to this download page, but as #ahren alread said in his comment, it won't navigate away from the current page.
It's all about setting the correct headers so I'm sure you'll find a suitable solution for the server-side language you're using if it's not PHP.
Handling the response client side
Assuming you already know how to make an AJAX call, on the client side you execute an AJAX request to the server. The server then generates a link from where this file can be downloaded, e.g. the 'forward' URL where you want to point to.
For example, the server responds with:
{
status: 1, // ok
// unique one-time download token, not required of course
message: 'http://yourwebsite.com/getdownload/ska08912dsa'
}
When processing the response, you inject an iframe in your body and set the iframe's SRC to the URL you just received like this (using jQuery for the ease of this example):
$("body").append("<iframe src='" + data.message +
"' style='display: none;' ></iframe>");
If you've set the correct headers as shown above, the iframe will force a download dialog without navigating the browser away from the current page.
Note
Extra addition in relation to your question; I think it's best to always return JSON when requesting stuff with AJAX technology. After you've received the JSON response, you can then decide client-side what to do with it. Maybe, for example, later on you want the user to click a download link to the URL instead of forcing the download directly, in your current setup you would have to update both client and server-side to do so.
Here is how I got this working
https://stackoverflow.com/a/27563953/2845977
$.ajax({
url: '<URL_TO_FILE>',
success: function(data) {
var blob=new Blob([data]);
var link=document.createElement('a');
link.href=window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
link.download="<FILENAME_TO_SAVE_WITH_EXTENSION>";
link.click();
}
});
Updated answer using download.js
$.ajax({
url: '<URL_TO_FILE>',
success: download.bind(true, "<FILENAME_TO_SAVE_WITH_EXTENSION>", "<FILE_MIME_TYPE>")
});
For those looking for a solution from an Angular perspective, this worked for me:
$http.post(
'url',
{},
{responseType: 'arraybuffer'}
).then(function (response) {
var headers = response.headers();
var blob = new Blob([response.data],{type:headers['content-type']});
var link = document.createElement('a');
link.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
link.download = "Filename";
link.click();
});
For those looking for a more modern approach, you can use the fetch API. The following code shows how to download a spreadsheet file.
fetch(url, {
body: JSON.stringify(data),
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
},
})
.then(response => response.blob())
.then(response => {
const blob = new Blob([response], {type: 'application/application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet'});
const downloadUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
const a = document.createElement("a");
a.href = downloadUrl;
a.download = "file.xlsx";
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
})
I believe this approach to be much easier to understand than other XMLHttpRequest solutions. Also, it has a similar syntax to the jQuery approach, without the need to add any additional libraries.
Of course, I would advise checking to which browser you are developing, since this new approach won't work on IE. You can find the full browser compatibility list on the following [link][1].
Important: In this example I am sending a JSON request to a server listening on the given url. This url must be set, on my example I am assuming you know this part. Also, consider the headers needed for your request to work. Since I am sending a JSON, I must add the Content-Type header and set it to application/json; charset=utf-8, as to let the server know the type of request it will receive.
I see you've already found out a solution, however I just wanted to add some information which may help someone trying to achieve the same thing with big POST requests.
I had the same issue a couple of weeks ago, indeed it isn't possible to achieve a "clean" download through AJAX, the Filament Group created a jQuery plugin which works exactly how you've already found out, it is called jQuery File Download however there is a downside to this technique.
If you're sending big requests through AJAX (say files +1MB) it will negatively impact responsiveness. In slow Internet connections you'll have to wait a lot until the request is sent and also wait for the file to download. It isn't like an instant "click" => "popup" => "download start". It's more like "click" => "wait until data is sent" => "wait for response" => "download start" which makes it appear the file double its size because you'll have to wait for the request to be sent through AJAX and get it back as a downloadable file.
If you're working with small file sizes <1MB you won't notice this. But as I discovered in my own app, for bigger file sizes it is almost unbearable.
My app allow users to export images dynamically generated, these images are sent through POST requests in base64 format to the server (it is the only possible way), then processed and sent back to users in form of .png, .jpg files, base64 strings for images +1MB are huge, this force users to wait more than necessary for the file to start downloading. In slow Internet connections it can be really annoying.
My solution for this was to temporary write the file to the server, once it is ready, dynamically generate a link to the file in form of a button which changes between "Please wait..." and "Download" states and at the same time, print the base64 image in a preview popup window so users can "right-click" and save it. This makes all the waiting time more bearable for users, and also speed things up.
Update Sep 30, 2014:
Months have passed since I posted this, finally I've found a better approach to speed things up when working with big base64 strings. I now store base64 strings into the database (using longtext or longblog fields), then I pass its record ID through the jQuery File Download, finally on the download script file I query the database using this ID to pull the base64 string and pass it through the download function.
Download Script Example:
<?php
// Record ID
$downloadID = (int)$_POST['id'];
// Query Data (this example uses CodeIgniter)
$data = $CI->MyQueries->GetDownload( $downloadID );
// base64 tags are replaced by [removed], so we strip them out
$base64 = base64_decode( preg_replace('#\[removed\]#', '', $data[0]->image) );
// This example is for base64 images
$imgsize = getimagesize( $base64 );
// Set content headers
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="my-file.png"');
header('Content-type: '.$imgsize['mime']);
// Force download
echo $base64;
?>
I know this is way beyond what the OP asked, however I felt it would be good to update my answer with my findings. When I was searching for solutions to my problem, I read lots of "Download from AJAX POST data" threads which didn't give me the answer I was looking for, I hope this information helps someone looking to achieve something like this.
Here is my solution using a temporary hidden form.
//Create an hidden form
var form = $('<form>', {'method': 'POST', 'action': this.href}).hide();
//Add params
var params = { ...your params... };
$.each(params, function (k, v) {
form.append($('<input>', {'type': 'hidden', 'name': k, 'value': v}));
});
//Make it part of the document and submit
$('body').append(form);
form.submit();
//Clean up
form.remove();
Note that I massively use JQuery but you can do the same with native JS.
I want to point out some difficulties that arise when using the technique in the accepted answer, i.e. using a form post:
You can't set headers on the request. If your authentication schema involves headers, a Json-Web-Token passed in the Authorization header, you'll have to find other way to send it, for example as a query parameter.
You can't really tell when the request has finished. Well, you can use a cookie that gets set on response, as done by jquery.fileDownload, but it's FAR from perfect. It won't work for concurrent requests and it will break if a response never arrives.
If the server responds with a error, the user will be redirected to the error page.
You can only use the content types supported by a form. Which means you can't use JSON.
I ended up using the method of saving the file on S3 and sending a pre-signed URL to get the file.
As others have stated, you can create and submit a form to download via a POST request. However, you don't have to do this manually.
One really simple library for doing exactly this is jquery.redirect. It provides an API similar to the standard jQuery.post method:
$.redirect(url, [values, [method, [target]]])
This is a 3 years old question but I had the same problem today. I looked your edited solution but I think that it can sacrifice the performance because it has to make a double request. So if anyone needs another solution that doesn't imply to call the service twice then this is the way I did it:
<form id="export-csv-form" method="POST" action="/the/path/to/file">
<input type="hidden" name="anyValueToPassTheServer" value="">
</form>
This form is just used to call the service and avoid to use a window.location(). After that you just simply have to make a form submit from jquery in order to call the service and get the file. It's pretty simple but this way you can make a download using a POST. I now that this could be easier if the service you're calling is a GET, but that's not my case.
I used this FileSaver.js. In my case with csv files, i did this (in coffescript):
$.ajax
url: "url-to-server"
data: "data-to-send"
success: (csvData)->
blob = new Blob([csvData], { type: 'text/csv' })
saveAs(blob, "filename.csv")
I think for most complicated case, the data must be processed properly. Under the hood FileSaver.js implement the same approach of the answer of Jonathan Amend.
see: http://www.henryalgus.com/reading-binary-files-using-jquery-ajax/
it'll return a blob as a response, which can then be put into filesaver
Here is my solution, gathered from different sources:
Server side implementation :
String contentType = MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM_VALUE;
// Set headers
response.setHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename =" + fileName);
response.setContentType(contentType);
// Copy file to output stream
ServletOutputStream servletOutputStream = response.getOutputStream();
try (InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(file)) {
IOUtils.copy(inputStream, servletOutputStream);
} finally {
servletOutputStream.flush();
Utils.closeQuitely(servletOutputStream);
fileToDownload = null;
}
Client side implementation (using jquery):
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
contentType: 'application/json',
url: <download file url>,
data: JSON.stringify(postObject),
error: function(XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) {
alert(errorThrown);
},
success: function(message, textStatus, response) {
var header = response.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
var fileName = header.split("=")[1];
var blob = new Blob([message]);
var link = document.createElement('a');
link.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
link.download = fileName;
link.click();
}
});
Below is my solution for downloading multiple files depending on some list which consists of some ids and looking up in database, files will be determined and ready for download - if those exist.
I am calling C# MVC action for each file using Ajax.
And Yes, like others said, it is possible to do it in jQuery Ajax.
I did it with Ajax success and I am always sending response 200.
So, this is the key:
success: function (data, textStatus, xhr) {
And this is my code:
var i = 0;
var max = 0;
function DownloadMultipleFiles() {
if ($(".dataTables_scrollBody>tr.selected").length > 0) {
var list = [];
showPreloader();
$(".dataTables_scrollBody>tr.selected").each(function (e) {
var element = $(this);
var orderid = element.data("orderid");
var iscustom = element.data("iscustom");
var orderlineid = element.data("orderlineid");
var folderPath = "";
var fileName = "";
list.push({ orderId: orderid, isCustomOrderLine: iscustom, orderLineId: orderlineid, folderPath: folderPath, fileName: fileName });
});
i = 0;
max = list.length;
DownloadFile(list);
}
}
Then calling:
function DownloadFile(list) {
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("OpenFile","OrderLines")',
type: "post",
data: list[i],
xhrFields: {
responseType: 'blob'
},
beforeSend: function (xhr) {
xhr.setRequestHeader("RequestVerificationToken",
$('input:hidden[name="__RequestVerificationToken"]').val());
},
success: function (data, textStatus, xhr) {
// check for a filename
var filename = "";
var disposition = xhr.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
var filenameRegex = /filename[^;=\n]*=((['"]).*?\2|[^;\n]*)/;
var matches = filenameRegex.exec(disposition);
if (matches != null && matches[1]) filename = matches[1].replace(/['"]/g, '');
var a = document.createElement('a');
var url = window.URL.createObjectURL(data);
a.href = url;
a.download = filename;
document.body.append(a);
a.click();
a.remove();
window.URL.revokeObjectURL(url);
}
else {
getErrorToastMessage("Production file for order line " + list[i].orderLineId + " does not exist");
}
i = i + 1;
if (i < max) {
DownloadFile(list);
}
},
error: function (XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) {
},
complete: function () {
if(i===max)
hidePreloader();
}
});
}
C# MVC:
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public IActionResult OpenFile(OrderLineSimpleModel model)
{
byte[] file = null;
try
{
if (model != null)
{
//code for getting file from api - part is missing here as not important for this example
file = apiHandler.Get<byte[]>(downloadApiUrl, token);
var contentDispositionHeader = new System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
{
Inline = true,
FileName = fileName
};
// Response.Headers.Add("Content-Disposition", contentDispositionHeader.ToString() + "; attachment");
Response.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
Response.Headers.Add("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileName);
Response.Headers.Add("Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary");
Response.Headers.Add("Content-Length", file.Length.ToString());
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
this.logger.LogError(ex, "Error getting pdf", null);
return Ok();
}
return File(file, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Pdf);
}
As long as you return response 200, success in Ajax can work with it, you can check if file actually exist or not as the line below in this case would be false and you can inform user about that:
if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
To get Jonathan Amends answer to work in Edge I made the following changes:
var blob = typeof File === 'function'
? new File([this.response], filename, { type: type })
: new Blob([this.response], { type: type });
to this
var f = typeof File+"";
var blob = f === 'function' && Modernizr.fileapi
? new File([this.response], filename, { type: type })
: new Blob([this.response], { type: type });
I would rather have posted this as a comment but I don't have enough reputation for that
there is another solution to download a web page in ajax. But I am referring to a page that must first be processed and then downloaded.
First you need to separate the page processing from the results download.
1) Only the page calculations are made in the ajax call.
$.post("CalculusPage.php", { calculusFunction: true, ID: 29, data1: "a", data2: "b" },
function(data, status)
{
if (status == "success")
{
/* 2) In the answer the page that uses the previous calculations is downloaded. For example, this can be a page that prints the results of a table calculated in the ajax call. */
window.location.href = DownloadPage.php+"?ID="+29;
}
}
);
// For example: in the CalculusPage.php
if ( !empty($_POST["calculusFunction"]) )
{
$ID = $_POST["ID"];
$query = "INSERT INTO ExamplePage (data1, data2) VALUES ('".$_POST["data1"]."', '".$_POST["data2"]."') WHERE id = ".$ID;
...
}
// For example: in the DownloadPage.php
$ID = $_GET["ID"];
$sede = "SELECT * FROM ExamplePage WHERE id = ".$ID;
...
$filename="Export_Data.xls";
header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=$filename");
...
I hope this solution can be useful for many, as it was for me.
If response is an Array Buffer, try this under onsuccess event in Ajax:
if (event.data instanceof ArrayBuffer) {
var binary = '';
var bytes = new Uint8Array(event.data);
for (var i = 0; i < bytes.byteLength; i++) {
binary += String.fromCharCode(bytes[i])
}
$("#some_id").append("<li><img src=\"data:image/png;base64," + window.btoa(binary) + "\"/></span></li>");
return;
}
where event.data is response received in success function of xhr event.
I needed a similar solution to #alain-cruz's one, but in nuxt/vue with multiple downloads. I know browsers block multiple file downloads, and I also have API which returns a set of csv formatted data.I was going to use JSZip at first but I needed IE support so here is my solution. If anyone can help me improve this that would be great, but it's working for me so far.
API returns:
data : {
body: {
fileOne: ""col1", "col2", "datarow1.1", "datarow1.2"...so on",
fileTwo: ""col1", "col2"..."
}
}
page.vue:
<template>
<b-link #click.prevent="handleFileExport">Export<b-link>
</template>
export default = {
data() {
return {
fileNames: ['fileOne', 'fileTwo'],
}
},
computed: {
...mapState({
fileOne: (state) => state.exportFile.fileOne,
fileTwo: (state) => state.exportFile.fileTwo,
}),
},
method: {
handleExport() {
//exportFileAction in store/exportFile needs to return promise
this.$store.dispatch('exportFile/exportFileAction', paramsToSend)
.then(async (response) => {
const downloadPrep = this.fileNames.map(async (fileName) => {
// using lodash to get computed data by the file name
const currentData = await _.get(this, `${fileName}`);
const currentFileName = fileName;
return { currentData, currentFileName };
});
const response = await Promise.all(downloadPrep);
return response;
})
.then(async (data) => {
data.forEach(({ currentData, currentFileName }) => {
this.forceFileDownload(currentData, currentFileName);
});
})
.catch(console.error);
},
forceFileDownload(data, fileName) {
const url = window.URL
.createObjectURL(new Blob([data], { type: 'text/csv;charset=utf-8;' }));
const link = document.createElement('a');
link.href = url;
link.setAttribute('download', `${fileName}.csv`);
document.body.appendChild(link);
link.click();
},
}
I used Naren Yellavula's solution and got it working with few changes to the script, after trying several other solutions using jquery. But, jquery will not download a zip file properly. I can't unzip the file after download.
In my use case, I have to upload a zip file, which is unzipped in the Servlet, files are processed and zipped again before the zip file is downloaded to the client. This is what you need to do on client side.
$('#fileUpBtn').click(function (e){
e.preventDefault();
var file = $('#fileUpload')[0].files[0];
var formdata = new FormData();
formdata.append('file', file);
// Use XMLHttpRequest instead of Jquery $ajax to download zip files
xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (xhttp.readyState === 4 && xhttp.status === 200) {
var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(xhttp.response);
a.download = "modified_" + file.name;
a.style.display = 'none';
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
document.body.removeChild(a);
window.URL.revokeObjectURL(a.href);
}
};
xhttp.open("POST", "<URL to Servlet>", true);
xhttp.responseType = 'blob';
xhttp.send(formdata);
});
<div class="form-group">
<label id="fileUpLabel" for="fileUpload"></label>
<input type="file" class="form-control" id="fileUpload" name="file" accept="" required/>
</div>
<button class="btn" type="submit" id="fileUpBtn"></button>

How can I convert this AJAX request function (raw Javascript) to use POST instead of GET?

I was looking for AJAX in pure JavaScript (without jQuery) for learning purposes and came across this video, along with the code (shown below) on how to make one. However, it's geared towards GET method and I'm not sure how to tweak it to accept additional parameters so that the function can be used for either POST or GET depending on my specified parameters. For example, the lines xhr.open('GET', url, true); and xhr.send(''); both are GET-specific (all other lines in the function are the same for both GET and POST methods)--I want to be able to be able to specify whether to use POST or GET as a parameter for function load for xhr.open and a string such as "username="+username+"&password="+password for function load for xhr.send('');
For example, the function below is for GET and is used like this load('emails.php', function(xhr) {...}. I want the function to be used like this: load('emails.php', 'POST', '"username="+username+"&password="+password' function(xhr) {...}` for POST andload('emails.php', 'GET', '', function(xhr) {...}`
The function for AJAX for GET:
function load(url, callback) {
var xhr;
if(typeof XMLHttpRequest !== 'undefined') xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
else {
var versions = ["Microsoft.XmlHttp",
"MSXML2.XmlHttp",
"MSXML2.XmlHttp.3.0",
"MSXML2.XmlHttp.4.0",
"MSXML2.XmlHttp.5.0"];
for(var i = 0, len = versions.length; i < len; i++) {
try {
xhr = new ActiveXObject(versions[i]);
break;
}
catch(e){}
} // end for
}
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
if((xhr.readyState < 4) || xhr.status !== 200) return;
callback(xhr);
};
xhr.open('GET', url, true);
xhr.send('');
}
Right now the request body is set to null and ignored since you are making a GET request. You should just be able to put whatever you want sent in the body of the POST request inside of the send method:
xhr.open('POST', url, true);
xhr.send(JSON.stringify(someJsonHere));
Check out the documentation for the xhr.send method here:
Here is also a link to a more thorough guide on using XMLHttpRequests; at the bottom it has a section specific to sending data.

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