How to return binary data instead of base64 encoded byte[] in spring mvc rest controller

Question

I want to return a generated pdf file via spring-mvc-rest controller. This is a shortened version of the code I'm currently using:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/x")
public class XController {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ResponseEntity<byte[]> find() throws IOException {
        byte[] pdf = createPdf();

        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(new MediaType("application", "pdf"));
        headers.setContentDispositionFormData("attachment", "x.pdf");
        headers.setContentLength(pdf.length);
        return new ResponseEntity<byte[]>(pdf, headers, HttpStatus.OK);
    }
}

This works almost fine, it just to return the actual byte array as base64 encoded :(

curl -i 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/app/x'

Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="attachment"; filename=x.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf
Content-Length: 138654
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2016 11:25:38 GMT

"JVBERi0xLjYNJeLjz9MNCjMyNCAwIG9iag [...]

(btw. the response doesn't even contain a closing " :)

Any hints appreciated!

Answer 1

I created the example using your code, but a very similar method is doing his job in my web application:

@RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public void downloadFile(HttpServletResponse response,
                         HttpServletRequest request) throws IOException
{
    byte[] pdf = createPdf();

    response.setContentType("application/x-download");
    response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=foo.pdf");
    response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
    response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
    response.getOutputStream().write(pdf);
}

Else you can try this answer Open ResponseEntity PDF in new browser tab

Answer 2

The problem is caused by Spring trying to encode the response as Json.

Your request probably specifies Accepts = "*/*" and since Spring ignores the ResponseEntity's ContentType, the best encoding is found to be application/json.

The simplest fix to this is to add a produces to your request mapping, so your code becomes:

@RestController
@RequestMapping(value = "/x",
                produces = "application/pdf") // <-- Add this
public class XController {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ResponseEntity<byte[]> find() throws IOException {
        byte[] pdf = createPdf();

        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_PDF);
        headers.setContentDispositionFormData("attachment", "x.pdf");
        headers.setContentLength(pdf.length);
        return new ResponseEntity<byte[]>(pdf, headers, HttpStatus.OK);
    }
}