starting file download with JavaScript

Question

Let's say I have download links for files on my site.

When clicked these links send an AJAX request to the server which returns the URL with the location of the file.

What I want to do is direct the browser to download the file when the response gets back. Is there a portable way to do this?

Answer 1

A agree with the methods mentioned by maxnk, however you may want to reconsider trying to automatically force the browser to download the URL. It may work fine for binary files but for other types of files (text, PDF, images, video), the browser may want to render it in the window (or IFRAME) rather than saving to disk.

If you really do need to make an Ajax call to get the final download links, what about using DHTML to dynamically write out the download link (from the ajax response) into the page? That way the user could either click on it to download (if binary) or view in their browser - or select "Save As" on the link to save to disk. It's an extra click, but the user has more control.

Answer 2

I have created an open source jQuery File Download plugin (Demo with examples) (GitHub) which could also help with your situation. It works pretty similarly with an iframe but has some cool features that I have found quite handy:

• User never leaves the same page they initiated a file download from. This feature is becoming crucial for modern web applications
• Tested cross browser support (including mobile!)
• It supports POST and GET requests in a manner similar to jQuery's AJAX API
• successCallback and failCallback functions allow for you to be explicit about what the user sees in either situation
• In conjunction with jQuery UI a developer can easily show a modal telling the user that a file download is occurring, disband the modal after the download starts or even inform the user in a friendly manner that an error has occurred. See the Demo for an example of this.

Answer 3

Just call window.location.href = new_url from your javascript and it will redirect the browser to that URL as it the user had typed that into the address bar

Answer 4

We do it that way: First add this script.

<script type="text/javascript">
function populateIframe(id,path) 
{
    var ifrm = document.getElementById(id);
    ifrm.src = "download.php?path="+path;
}
</script>

Place this where you want the download button(here we use just a link):

<iframe id="frame1" style="display:none"></iframe>
<a href="javascript:populateIframe('frame1','<?php echo $path; ?>')">download</a>

The file 'download.php' (needs to be put on your server) simply contains:

<?php 
   header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$_GET['path']);
   readfile($_GET['path']);
?>

So when you click the link, the hidden iframe then gets/opens the sourcefile 'download.php'. With the path as get parameter. We think this is the best solution!

It should be noted that the PHP part of this solution is a simple demonstration and potentially very, very insecure. It allows the user to download any file, not just a pre-defined set. That means they could download parts of the source code of the site itself, possibly containing API credentials etc.

Answer 5

Try this lib https://github.com/PixelsCommander/Download-File-JS it`s more modern than all solutions described before because uses "download" attribute and combination of methods to bring best possible experience.

Explained here - http://pixelscommander.com/en/javascript/javascript-file-downliading-ignore-content-type/

Seems to be ideal piece of code for starting downloading in JavaScript.

Answer 6

I suggest to make an invisible iframe on the page and set it's src to url that you've received from the server - download will start without page reloading.

Or you can just set the current document.location.href to received url address. But that's can cause for user to see an error if the requested document actually does not exists.