How to download a locally stored file in VueJS

Question

I have an upload system and I am trying to supply a sample template for users. I have a template stored locally in a subfolder in assets, I would like to access that in my VueJS component and display a link to it on the page. These are the applicaple parts of the file structure:

├──app
│  └──Components
│     └──Uploader.vue
└──assets
   └──files
      └──Template_Upload.csv

In Uploader.vue I have this line:

<a v-bind:href="item.loc" download>{{item.title}}</a>

And in the export I have this line

data() {
  return {
    item: {title: 'Upload Template', loc: require('../../assets/files/Template_Upload.csv')}
}

This method works if I have an image. Upon clicking on the link, it downloads the image. However, if I use a .csv or a .xlsx file, errors are thrown upon opening the page. I've tried using

import fileTemplate from "../../assets/files/FileTemplate.csv";

As well, and using fileTemplate as the loc property. This also works if I use a picture. But I'm not able to bring in a document. Is this a limitation I can't get past or is there a different method I can try?

I've also gone into Visual Studio (in other words, the .csproj file), and set the Template_Upload.csv Build Action setting is set to "Content" and the Copy to Ouput Directory setting is set to "Copy Always".

These are the resources I have primarily used thus far:

How to import and use image in a Vue single file component?

What are the various "Build action" settings in Visual Studio project properties and what do they do?

Answer 1

For anyone which doesnt want to use webpack, I solved this issue:

• create a folder called files in public
• I moved there the files I wanted to download and Voila, WORKED.

<a href="/files/book.pdf" download>DOWNLOAD</a>

Answer 2

Thanks OverCoder, the solution was indeed to add a CSV Loader in order that adds the locally stored files to the webpack server. For anyone else using webpack, I added this module to my webpack.config.js file:

{
    test: /\.(csv|xlsx|xls)$/,
    loader: 'file-loader',
    options: {
        name: `files/[name].[ext]`
    }
}

Then I could reference the file easily like this in my template,

<a href="/files/Template_Upload.csv" download>File Template</a>

or this

<a :href="item.loc" download>File Template</a>

using the same data return as I said. Using the require statement with the loader puts the "required" files into the wwwroot/files folder when the project builds. Thanks again, OverCoder, this saved me a lot of time.