How to download excel/Zip files in Angular 4

Question

I am using angular 4 as frond end and lumen 5.4 as back end.

My requirement is to export some data as excel and zip file.

Using import { saveAs } from 'file-saver/FileSaver'; package for file download.

Angular 4 Code:

downloadExcel() {

const type = 'application/vnd.ms-excel';
const headers = { headers: new Headers({ 'Accept': type }) };
const filename = 'file.xls';

this.http.get('http://10.2.2.109/Download/exportExcel', headers)
  .toPromise()
  .then(response => this.saveToFileSystem(response, type, filename));

return false;


}



private saveToFileSystem(response, __type, filename) {
    const contentDispositionHeader: string = response.headers.get('Content-Disposition');

if (contentDispositionHeader !== null) {
  const parts: string[] = contentDispositionHeader.split(';');
  //const filename = parts[1].split('=')[1];
  const blob = new Blob([response._body], { type: __type });
  saveAs(blob, filename);
} else {
  alert('Cant download.....');
  // handling download condition if content disposition is empty
  const blob = new Blob([response._body], { type: __type });
  saveAs(blob, filename);
}


}

Lumen Code

public function exportExcel(Request $request) {
        $file = storage_path();
        $file_name = 'book1.xls';
        $headers = [
            'Content-type' => 'application/vnd.ms-excel',
            'Content-Disposition' => 'attachment;filename="' . $file_name,
            'X-Filename' => $file_name,
            'Content-Transfer-Encoding' => 'binary',
            'Content-Length' => filesize($file . '/' . $file_name),
            'Cache-Control' => 'max-age=0',
            'Cache-Control' => 'max-age=1',
            'Expires' => 'Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT',
            'Last-Modified' => gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s') . ' GMT',
            'Cache-Control' => 'cache, must-revalidate',
            'Pragma' => 'public',
            'Set-Cookie' => 'fileDownload=true; path=/',
            'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' => 'Content-Length,Cache-Control,Content-Language,Content-Type,Expires,Last-Modified,Pragma'
        ];

        return response()->download($file . '/' . $file_name, $file_name, $headers);
    }

Issues

1. const contentDispositionHeader: string = response.headers.get('Content-Disposition'); seems always empty.
2. We cant open downloaded file, shows corrupted message.
3. It working for text file download

Please help me to resolve this issue. OR specify any other working code//package for angular

Answer 1

Try this:

downloadExcel() {

  const type = 'application/vnd.ms-excel';
  const filename = 'file.xls';
  const options = new RequestOptions({
            responseType: ResponseContentType.Blob,
            headers: new Headers({ 'Accept': type })
        });

  this.http.get('http://10.2.2.109/Download/exportExcel', options)
           .catch(errorResponse => Observable.throw(errorResponse.json()))
           .map((response) => { 
                 if (response instanceof Response) {
                    return response.blob();
                 }
                 return response;
            })
           .subscribe(data => saveAs(data, filename),
                      error => console.log(error)); // implement your error handling here

}

The key points are responseType: ResponseContentType.Blob on the RequestOptions and response.blob() when getting back the response.

In general, it's not recommended to access the _body property of the response like this: response._body, but instead you should call the relevant method to get the body content based on its type (like response.blob(), response.json(), etc)