Downloading a file from spring controllers

Question

I have a requirement where I need to download a PDF from the website. The PDF needs to be generated within the code, which I thought would be a combination of freemarker and

Answer 1

This can be a useful answer.

Is it ok to export data as pdf format in frontend?

Extending to this, adding content-disposition as an attachment(default) will download the file. If you want to view it, you need to set it to inline.

Answer 2

In my case I'm generating some file on demand, so also url has to be generated.

For me works something like that:

@RequestMapping(value = "/files/{filename:.+}", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = "text/csv")
@ResponseBody
public FileSystemResource getFile(@PathVariable String filename) {
    String path = dataProvider.getFullPath(filename);
    return new FileSystemResource(new File(path));
}

Very important is mime type in produces and also that, that name of the file is a part of the link so you has to use @PathVariable.

HTML code looks like that:

<a th:href="@{|/dbreport/files/${file_name}|}">Download</a>

Where ${file_name} is generated by Thymeleaf in controller and is i.e.: result_20200225.csv, so that whole url behing link is: example.com/aplication/dbreport/files/result_20200225.csv.

After clicking on link browser asks me what to do with file - save or open.