Create a file in memory for user to download, not

Question

Is there any way I can create a text file on the client side and prompt the user to download it, without any interaction with the server? I know I can't write directly to their machine (security and all), but can I create and prompt them to save it?

Answer 1

Based on @Rick answer which was really helpful.

You have to scape the string data if you want to share it this way:

$('a.download').attr('href', 'data:application/csv;charset=utf-8,'+ encodeURI(data));

` Sorry I can not comment on @Rick's answer due to my current low reputation in StackOverflow.

An edit suggestion was shared and rejected.

Answer 2

All of the above example works just fine in chrome and IE, but fail in Firefox. Please do consider appending an anchor to the body and removing it after click.

var a = window.document.createElement('a');
a.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(new Blob(['Test,Text'], {type: 'text/csv'}));
a.download = 'test.csv';

// Append anchor to body.
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();

// Remove anchor from body
document.body.removeChild(a);

Answer 3

I'm happily using FileSaver.js. Its compatibility is pretty good (IE10+ and everything else), and it's very simple to use:

var blob = new Blob(["some text"], {
    type: "text/plain;charset=utf-8;",
});
saveAs(blob, "thing.txt");

Answer 4

As of April 2014, FileSytem APIs may not be standardized in W3C. Anyone looking at the solution with blob should thread with caution, I guess.

HTML5 rocks heads up

W3C Mailing List on FileSytem API

Answer 5

This solution is extracted directly from tiddlywiki's (tiddlywiki.com) github repository. I have used tiddlywiki in almost all browsers and it works like a charm:

function(filename,text){
    // Set up the link
    var link = document.createElement("a");
    link.setAttribute("target","_blank");
    if(Blob !== undefined) {
        var blob = new Blob([text], {type: "text/plain"});
        link.setAttribute("href", URL.createObjectURL(blob));
    } else {
        link.setAttribute("href","data:text/plain," + encodeURIComponent(text));
    }
    link.setAttribute("download",filename);
    document.body.appendChild(link);
    link.click();
    document.body.removeChild(link);
}

Github repo: Download saver module

Answer 6

The following method works in IE11+, Firefox 25+ and Chrome 30+:

<a id="export" class="myButton" download="" href="#">export</a>
<script>
    function createDownloadLink(anchorSelector, str, fileName){
        if(window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob) {
            var fileData = [str];
            blobObject = new Blob(fileData);
            $(anchorSelector).click(function(){
                window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob(blobObject, fileName);
            });
        } else {
            var url = "data:text/plain;charset=utf-8," + encodeURIComponent(str);
            $(anchorSelector).attr("download", fileName);               
            $(anchorSelector).attr("href", url);
        }
    }

    $(function () {
        var str = "hi,file";
        createDownloadLink("#export",str,"file.txt");
    });

</script>

See this in Action: http://jsfiddle.net/Kg7eA/

Firefox and Chrome support data URI for navigation, which allows us to create files by navigating to a data URI, while IE doesn't support it for security purposes.

On the other hand, IE has API for saving a blob, which can be used to create and download files.