I'm having trouble issuing a POST mand that downloads a file.

On the client side, I'm trying to POST to a specific URL, including a param that specifies the file to download.

var req = $.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url : '/click',
    data: { 'path' : filename }
   });
req.done(function(data) {
// Download the file here?

The server eventually fires off a method which does this:

function downloadFile(req, res) {
  var dir = req.session.currentdir + req.body.path;
  mimetype = (shell.exec("file --mime-type '" + dir + "'", {silent:true}).output);
  mimetype = mimetype.substring(mimetype.indexOf(": ") + 2, mimetype.length);

  var stat = fs.statSync(dir);
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type' : mimetype,
                      'Content-Length': stat.size });
  var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(dir);
  fileStream.pipe(res);
};

Now I can't seem to get the client side to accept the file I'm trying to pipe back . . it just hangs for an incredibly long time before closing. What is the appropriate way to get the client to download the file I'm trying to send back?

Much thanks for taking the time to read.

I'm having trouble issuing a POST mand that downloads a file.

On the client side, I'm trying to POST to a specific URL, including a param that specifies the file to download.

var req = $.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url : '/click',
    data: { 'path' : filename }
   });
req.done(function(data) {
// Download the file here?

The server eventually fires off a method which does this:

function downloadFile(req, res) {
  var dir = req.session.currentdir + req.body.path;
  mimetype = (shell.exec("file --mime-type '" + dir + "'", {silent:true}).output);
  mimetype = mimetype.substring(mimetype.indexOf(": ") + 2, mimetype.length);

  var stat = fs.statSync(dir);
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type' : mimetype,
                      'Content-Length': stat.size });
  var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(dir);
  fileStream.pipe(res);
};

Now I can't seem to get the client side to accept the file I'm trying to pipe back . . it just hangs for an incredibly long time before closing. What is the appropriate way to get the client to download the file I'm trying to send back?

Much thanks for taking the time to read.

• javascript
• ajax
• node.js
• post
• express

• I am facing same problem. I am getting the data in %PDF-1.4 %���� {more data} %%EOF, but how should i download the file. – Mohit Pandey Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 14:00

1 Answer 1

1. resp.setHeader( "Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"xxxx.xxx\"" );

2. better to use Get