Use the Fetch API to download files with their original filename and the proper way to catch server errors
The Fetch API provides a handy way for downloading resources from the internet via JavaScript code. In my case I used it to download Excel sheets from the back-end of a web application. Let us check the code together and clarify things with the help of comments.
var filename = "";
// We first call fetch with the URL of the resource we want to download
fetch("https://www.example.com/")
// This returns a promise inside of which we are checking for errors from the server.
// The catch promise at the end of the call does not getting called when the server returns an error.
// More information about the error catching can be found here: https://www.tjvantoll.com/2015/09/13/fetch-and-errors/.
.then((result) => {
if (!result.ok) {
throw Error(result.statusText);
}
// We are reading the *Content-Disposition* header for getting the original filename given from the server
const header = result.headers.get('Content-Disposition');
const parts = header.split(';');
filename = parts[1].split('=')[1].replaceAll("\"", "");
return result.blob();
})
// We use the download property for triggering the download of the file from our browser.
// More information about the following code can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32545632/how-can-i-download-a-file-using-window-fetch.
// The filename from the first promise is used as name of the file.
.then((blob) => {
if (blob != null) {
var url = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = url;
a.download = filename;
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.click();
a.remove();
}
})
// The catch is getting called only for client-side errors.
// For example the throw in the first then-promise, which is the error that came from the server.
.catch((err) =>
{
console.log(err);
});
I wanted to keep this article straight to the point and only present you with the code you need to use. I hope this was helpful for some of you.