Using jQuery and iFrame to Download a File

Question

I have the following code to download a .csv file:

$.ajax({
    url: urlString,
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    dataType: "json",
    cache: false,
    success: function(data) {
        if (data) {
            var iframe = $("<iframe/>").attr({
                src: data,
                style: "visibility:hidden;display:none"
            }).appendTo(buttonToDownloadFile);
        } else {
            alert('Something went wrong');
        }
    }
});

The urlString is pointing to a Restful service that generates the .csv file and returns the file path which is assigned to the src attribute for the iFrame. This works for any .csv files but I'm having problems with .xml files.

When I use the same code but changing the contentType to text/xml and use it for downloading .xml files this doesn't work.

Can I use the same approach here for .xml files?

UPDATE:

Thanks to Ben for pointing me to the right direction. It turns out I don't need the ajax call at all. Instead, I can just use the iFrame and its url attribute to call the web service, which will generate the content, add the header (Content-Disposition), and return the stream.

Answer 1

You can also offer it as a download from a virtual anchor element, even if the data is client-side:

/*
 * Create an anchor to some inline data...
 */

var url = 'data:application/octet-stream,Testing%20one%20two%20three';
var anchor = document.createElement('a');
    anchor.setAttribute('href', url);
    anchor.setAttribute('download', 'myNote.txt');

/*
 * Click the anchor
 */

// Chrome can do anchor.click(), but let's do something that Firefox can handle too

// Create event
var ev = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
    ev.initMouseEvent("click", true, false, self, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false, 0, null);

// Fire event
anchor.dispatchEvent(ev);

http://jsfiddle.net/D572L/