How can we export json as a file through a rest web service?

Question

I am returning an object as json through the existing rest service, however I wish to save the json to the users local disk.

possible duplicate of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1053467/how-do-i-save-a-string-to-a-text-file-using-java — Scary Wombat, Jun 29 '17 at 07:04
see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3802510/force-to-open-save-as-popup-open-at-text-link-click-for-pdf-in-html — Scary Wombat, Jun 29 '17 at 07:06
or https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11353425/force-a-browser-to-save-file-as-after-clicking-link — Scary Wombat, Jun 29 '17 at 07:06

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 29 '17 at 07:17

You can write the file in the server. And use the following code to send the file to user.

String path = context.getSession().getServletContext().getRealPath("/") + "path to file";  

InputStream inputStream = prepairFileStream(response, path);
if (inputStream == null) return;

FileCopyUtils.copy(inputStream, response.getOutputStream());

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 29 '17 at 12:04

Only the user can choose to save a file on their local disk.

You can advise a browser (provided that a browser is involved on the user's side) to prompt the user with a "Save As..." dialog by including a Content-Disposition header with your response:

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="fname.json"

(List of HTTP header fields)

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 29 '17 at 12:14

You can do something like this:-

testFunction: function(req, res){

var yourJson = {"test":"testing"};
var text={"filename.txt":yourJson};
res.set({'Content-Disposition': 'attachment;filename=\"cards.txt\"','Content-type': 'text/plain'});
res.send(text['filename.txt']);

}

this will download your json data as a file in your downloads folder.

How can we export json as a file through a rest web service?

3 Answers3