161

I am trying to download a file from a Spring boot rest service.

@RequestMapping(path="/downloadFile",method=RequestMethod.GET)
    @Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
    public  ResponseEntity<InputStreamReader> downloadDocument(
                String acquistionId,
                String fileType,
                Integer expressVfId) throws IOException {
        File file2Upload = new File("C:\\Users\\admin\\Desktop\\bkp\\1.rtf");
        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.add("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
        headers.add("Pragma", "no-cache");
        headers.add("Expires", "0");
        InputStreamReader i = new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file2Upload));
        System.out.println("The length of the file is : "+file2Upload.length());

        return ResponseEntity.ok().headers(headers).contentLength(file2Upload.length())
                .contentType(MediaType.parseMediaType("application/octet-stream"))
                .body(i);
        }

When I tried to download the file from the browser, it starts the download, but always fails. Is there anything wrong with the service which is causing the download to fail?

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7 Answers 7

Reset to default
269

Option 1 using an InputStreamResource

Resource implementation for a given InputStream.

Should only be used if no other specific Resource implementation is > applicable. In particular, prefer ByteArrayResource or any of the file-based Resource implementations where possible. 

@RequestMapping(path = "/download", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ResponseEntity<Resource> download(String param) throws IOException {

    // ...

    InputStreamResource resource = new InputStreamResource(new FileInputStream(file));

    return ResponseEntity.ok()
            .headers(headers)
            .contentLength(file.length())
            .contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM)
            .body(resource);
}

Option2 as the documentation of the InputStreamResource suggests - using a ByteArrayResource:

@RequestMapping(path = "/download", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ResponseEntity<Resource> download(String param) throws IOException {

    // ...

    Path path = Paths.get(file.getAbsolutePath());
    ByteArrayResource resource = new ByteArrayResource(Files.readAllBytes(path));

    return ResponseEntity.ok()
            .headers(headers)
            .contentLength(file.length())
            .contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM)
            .body(resource);
}
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12 Comments

I am trying to do it for word document .doc format, but while downloading the format is gone and file is downloaded without file extension and the file name is response while downloading. Any suggestion?
@TulsiJain add the Content-Disposition HttpHeader: HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders(); headers.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=myDoc.docx");
just in case you're unlucky enough to be using plain Spring instead of Spring Boot, you need to make sure that an instance of ResourceHttpMessageConverter is added to your list of HttpMessageConverters. Create a @Configuration class that extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter, implement the configureMessageConverters() method and add a converters.add(new ResourceHttpMessageConverter()); line
Questions: Option 1 does not seem to close the stream. Where is the magic? Option 2 seems to load the complete file into memory before sending. Correct? Alternatives? THX!
For huge files ByteArrayResource will work? It will not take entire heap space? Or should we go for StreamingResponseBody so that Out Of Memory will not occur?
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71

The below Sample code worked for me and might help someone.

import org.springframework.core.io.ByteArrayResource;
import org.springframework.core.io.Resource;
import org.springframework.http.HttpHeaders;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/app")
public class ImageResource {

    private static final String EXTENSION = ".jpg";
    private static final String SERVER_LOCATION = "/server/images";

    @RequestMapping(path = "/download", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ResponseEntity<Resource> download(@RequestParam("image") String image) throws IOException {
        File file = new File(SERVER_LOCATION + File.separator + image + EXTENSION);

        HttpHeaders header = new HttpHeaders();
        header.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=img.jpg");
        header.add("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
        header.add("Pragma", "no-cache");
        header.add("Expires", "0");

        Path path = Paths.get(file.getAbsolutePath());
        ByteArrayResource resource = new ByteArrayResource(Files.readAllBytes(path));

        return ResponseEntity.ok()
                .headers(header)
                .contentLength(file.length())
                .contentType(MediaType.parseMediaType("application/octet-stream"))
                .body(resource);
    }

}
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2 Comments

Great worked for me.
This approach may be suitable for small files, but if dealing with larger files, it would be more efficient to write directly to the OutputStream and avoid loading the entire file into memory
32

I would suggest using a StreamingResponseBody since with it, the application can write directly to the response (OutputStream), without holding up the Servlet container thread. It is a good approach if you are downloading a very large file.

@GetMapping("download")
public StreamingResponseBody downloadFile(HttpServletResponse response, @PathVariable Long fileId) {

    FileInfo fileInfo = fileService.findFileInfo(fileId);
    response.setContentType(fileInfo.getContentType());
    response.setHeader(
        HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment;filename=\"" + fileInfo.getFilename() + "\"");

    return outputStream -> {
        int bytesRead;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
        InputStream inputStream = fileInfo.getInputStream();
        while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
    };
}

Ps.: When using StreamingResponseBody, it is highly recommended to configure TaskExecutor used in Spring MVC for executing asynchronous requests. TaskExecutor is an interface that abstracts the execution of a Runnable.

More info: https://medium.com/swlh/streaming-data-with-spring-boot-restful-web-service-87522511c071

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3 Comments

stackoverflow.com/users/8650621/felipe-desiderati don't we need to close the inputStream ?
No, because it’s auto closeable. Just check that we are returning a lambda, and it will be called after by the Framework.
stackoverflow.com/users/8650621/felipe-desiderati can we use ByteArrayResource if the files are max 10 MB and stored in DB as byte array? or StreamingResponseBody is better option?
14

I want to share a simple approach for downloading files with JavaScript (ES6), React and a Spring Boot backend:

  1. Spring boot Rest Controller

Resource from org.springframework.core.io.Resource

    @SneakyThrows
    @GetMapping("/files/{filename:.+}/{extraVariable}")
    @ResponseBody
    public ResponseEntity<Resource> serveFile(@PathVariable String filename, @PathVariable String extraVariable) {

        Resource file = storageService.loadAsResource(filename, extraVariable);
        return ResponseEntity.ok()
               .header(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=\"" + file.getFilename() + "\"")
               .body(file);
    }
  1. React, API call using AXIOS

Set the responseType to arraybuffer to specify the type of data contained in the response.

export const DownloadFile = (filename, extraVariable) => {
let url = 'http://localhost:8080/files/' + filename + '/' + extraVariable;
return axios.get(url, { responseType: 'arraybuffer' }).then((response) => {
    return response;
})};

Final step > downloading
with the help of js-file-download you can trigger browser to save data to file as if it was downloaded.

DownloadFile('filename.extension', 'extraVariable').then(
(response) => {
    fileDownload(response.data, filename);
}
, (error) => {
    // ERROR 
});
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1 Comment

I ran across this issue and was curious about the enclosure of the CONTENT_DISPOSITION header's filename in double quotes. Turns out that if you have a file with spaces in its name, you won't get the entire filename in the response without the double quotes. Good call, @fetahokey
10

If you need to download a huge file from the server's file system, then ByteArrayResource can take all Java heap space. In that case, you can use FileSystemResource

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2 Comments

can we use file system resource if the file is stored in byte array in DB? and on click we need to to download that file. Also what is the definition of huge file . my files are 255213 bytes
@jagga I think that a better solution is using ByteArrayResource (see Option 2 here stackoverflow.com/a/35683261/4141492), huge file for example more than 500MB
4 
    @GetMapping("/downloadfile/{productId}/{fileName}")
public ResponseEntity<Resource> downloadFile(@PathVariable(value = "productId") String productId,
        @PathVariable String fileName, HttpServletRequest request) {
    // Load file as Resource
    Resource resource;

    String fileBasePath = "C:\\Users\\v_fzhang\\mobileid\\src\\main\\resources\\data\\Filesdown\\" + productId
            + "\\";
    Path path = Paths.get(fileBasePath + fileName);
    try {
        resource = new UrlResource(path.toUri());
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return null;
    }

    // Try to determine file's content type
    String contentType = null;
    try {
        contentType = request.getServletContext().getMimeType(resource.getFile().getAbsolutePath());
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        System.out.println("Could not determine file type.");
    }

    // Fallback to the default content type if type could not be determined
    if (contentType == null) {
        contentType = "application/octet-stream";
    }

    return ResponseEntity.ok().contentType(MediaType.parseMediaType(contentType))
            .header(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=\"" + resource.getFilename() + "\"")
            .body(resource);
}

To test it, use postman

http://localhost:8080/api/downloadfile/GDD/1.zip

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Comments

0

using Apache IO could be another option for copy the Stream

@RequestMapping(path = "/file/{fileId}", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
public ResponseEntity<?> downloadFile(@PathVariable(value="fileId") String fileId,HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

    InputStream yourInputStream = ...
    IOUtils.copy(yourInputStream, response.getOutputStream());
    response.flushBuffer();
    return ResponseEntity.ok().build();
}

maven dependency

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
        <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
        <version>1.3.2</version>
    </dependency>
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2 Comments

Send back directly InputStreamResource with inputStream. You don't need to copy stream.
Agree with @Steph, see org.springframework.http.converter.ResourceHttpMessageConverter#writeContent Spring has done that for you with org.springframework.util.StreamUtils#copy(java.io.InputStream, java.io.OutputStream)

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