Download file on ajax success node.js

Question

I am building an app using node.js that needs to allow the user to download a .csv file.

The problem - the app does not send a file to the client as an attachment w

Answer 1

There are basically two popular ways to download a file.

1. Set window.location

Setting window.location to the download url will download the file.

window.location = '/path/to/download?arg=1';

A slightly different version of this is to open a new tab with the download path

window.open('/path/to/download', '_self');

2. Virtual Link Click

With HTML5, you can specify the download attribute of a link. Clicking the link (even programmatically) will trigger a download of the url. The links don't even need to be part of the DOM, you can make them dynamically.

var link = document.createElement('a');
link.href = '/path/to/download';
link.download = 'local_filename.csv';
var e = document.createEvent('MouseEvents');
e.initEvent('click', true, true);
link.dispatchEvent(e);

This isn't supported in all browsers, so even if you want to use this method, you'll have to drop support for some browsers or fallback to the first method.

Luckily, this excellent answer references an awesome little js library that does all this already -- http://pixelscommander.com/polygon/downloadjs/#.VrGw3vkrKHv

downloadFile('/path/to/download');

---

2-Step Download

Another convention you'll often see is a two step download, where information is sent to the server at a known url, and the server sends back a generated url or id that can be used to download the file.

This can be useful if you want the url to be something that can be shared, or if you have to pass a lot of parameters to the download generator or just want to do it via a POST request.

$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: '/download/path/generator',
    data: {'arg': 1, 'params': 'foo'},
    success: function(data, textStatus, request) {
        var download_id = data['id'];
        // Could also use the link-click method.
        window.location = '/path/to/download?id=' + download_id;
    }
});

Answer 2

to add to Brendan's answer I figured out a 3rd way that works :

1 - create a temporary form in the DOM

2 - fill the form with the data we would like to post (as in a post request)

3 - send the form

4 - delete the form from the DOM

Here is how I did it in JS

  $("#buybtn").click(function(){
    url = "localhost:8080/";
    // we create a form
    var form = document.createElement("form");
    // set the method to Post
    form.setAttribute("method", "post");
    // we set the action to be performed
    form.setAttribute("action", url + "api2");

    // the following variables contains the data to send
    params = {
        name : "name",
        age : "age"
    };

    // we iterate over the available fields in params
    // and set the data as if we are manually filling the form
    for(var key in params) {
        if(params.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
            var hiddenField = document.createElement("input");
            hiddenField.setAttribute("type", "hidden");
            hiddenField.setAttribute("name", key);
            hiddenField.setAttribute("value", params[key]);

            // we insert each element in the form
            form.appendChild(hiddenField);
        }
    }

    // we append the form to the DOM
    document.body.appendChild(form);
    // we submit the form
    form.submit();
    // we delete the created elements
    document.body.removeChild(form);
  });

Credits go to Rakesh Pai in this post : JavaScript post request like a form submit

I hope it works for you too !