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Get file content (not download) via HTTP request

I need to get file contents into my app directly from a FileManager action. For example, when I double-click a file, I want to make an HTTP request to the FileService API to return the file content in the Body. I want to get the data as the result of the HTTP request (not treated as a downloaded by the browser).

Below is my attempt. Calling `getFile().subscribe(res => handleResponse(res)` activates the HTTP request, and the request gets made. The response body has the file content. But somehow the response creates a browser error, and I never get the data. I'd appreciate a hint on how to do this correctly. Thanks!


    /**
* Retrieves a file from the SyncFusion file service.
*/
public getFile(downloadUrl: string, file: ISyncFusionFileDescriptor): Observable<string> {
const httpFormData = this.makeDownloadFormData(file);

// These are my best guess at headers, based on the headers I observe on FileManager's AJAX requests
const headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.set('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
headers.set('Accept', 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.9');
headers.set('Sec-Fetch-Dest', 'document');
headers.set('Sec-Fetch-Mode', 'no-cors');
headers.set('Sec-Fetch-Site', 'cross-site');
headers.set('Sec-Fetch-User', '?1');
headers.set('Upgrade-Insecure-Requests', '1');


return this._http.post(downloadUrl, httpFormData, { headers: headers });
}


/** Forms a FormData for a download request for a given file descriptor. */
private makeDownloadFormData(file: ISyncFusionFileDescriptor): FormData {
const downloadReq: ISyncFusionDownloadRequest = {
action: 'download',
path: file.filterPath,
names: [ file.name ],
data: [ file ]
}

const downloadReqStr = JSON.stringify(downloadReq);
const httpFormData = new FormData();
httpFormData.append("downloadInput", downloadReqStr);


return httpFormData;
}





2 Replies 1 reply marked as answer

MM Matthew Marichiba November 23, 2022 01:55 AM UTC

I figured out my own problem. For one, I was forming my HttpHeaders incorrectly; I needed to chain ".append()"s. However, the headers weren't the core of the problem.

The bigger issue is that I needed to customize Angular's `HttpClient.post()` with HttpOptions to instruct it to get just the response body text, and not try to parse it as JSON.


    /**
* Retrieves a file from the SyncFusion file service.
*/
public getFile(downloadUrl: string, file: ISyncFusionFileDescriptor): Observable {
const httpFormData = this.makeDownloadFormData(file);

const headers = new HttpHeaders()
.append('Accept', 'text/*');

        const httpOptions: unknown = {
            headers: headers,
            observe: 'body',
            responseType: 'text'
        };
        return this._http.post<any>(downloadUrl, httpFormData, httpOptions);
}


/** Forms a FormData for a download request for a given file descriptor. */
private makeDownloadFormData(file: ISyncFusionFileDescriptor): FormData {
const downloadReq: ISyncFusionDownloadRequest = {
action: 'download',
path: file.filterPath,
names: [ file.name ],
data: [ file ]
}

const downloadReqStr = JSON.stringify(downloadReq);
const httpFormData = new FormData();
httpFormData.append("downloadInput", downloadReqStr);


return httpFormData;
}




NOTE: There appears to be a bug in the Angular14 Typescript types for the `HttpClient.post()` method. The signature clearly accepts the body/text combination for the HttpOptions as shown above, but I couldn't get post() to work until I de-typed the HttpOptions object as `unknown`.  


Marked as answer

SS Shereen Shajahan Syncfusion Team December 9, 2022 05:36 AM UTC

Hi Matthew,

Thank you for the suggestion. We are glad that the issue has been resolved. We are marking it as solved.

Regards,

Shereen


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